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VIVE   LA   FRANCE! 


▼« 


BOOKS    BY  E.   ALEXANDER    POWELL 
Published  bt  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  LAST  FRONTIER :  The  White 
Man's  War  fob  Civilization  in  Africa. 
Illustrated.     8vo net    $1.50 

GENTLEMEN    ROVERS.      Illustrated. 

8vo net    $1.60 

THE  END  OF  THE  TRAIL.    Illustrated. 

8vo net    $3.00 

FIGHTING  IN  FLANDERS.     Illustrated. 
12ino net    $1.00 

THE  ROAD  TO  GLORY.       Illustrated. 

8vo ntl    $1.60 

VIVE   LA    FRANCE  I             Illustrated. 
12mo net    $1.00 


From  a  photograph  copyright  by  M.  Rol. 


"High-explosive !" 

'A  geyser  of  earth  and  smoke  shot  high  into  the  air.    Then  an  explosion  which 
was  brother  to  an  earthquake." 


VIVE  LA  FRANCE! 


BY 

E.   ALEXANDER   POWELL 

WAR    CORRESPONDENT    OF     THE   NEW    YORK   WORLD,    THE   LONDON 
DAILY  MAIL,  AND  SCRIBNER'S  MAGAZINE,  WITH  THE  ALLIED  ARMIES 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

191S 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  December,  1915 


TO 

FRANCE 

WHOSE  COURAGE,  SERENITY,  AND 
SACRIFICES,  IN  A  CONFLICT  WHICH 
SHE  DID  NOTHING  TO  PROVOKE,  HAVE 
WON  HER  THE  SYMPATHY,  RESPECT 
AND    ADMIRATION    OF    THE    WORLD 


AN  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

FOR  the  assistance  the}'  have  given  me, 
and  for  the  innumerable  kindnesses  they 
have  shown  me,  I  welcome  this  oppor- 
tunity of  expressing  my  thanks  and  apprecia- 
tion to  his  Excellency  Jean  Adrien  Antoine 
Jules  Jusserand,  French  ambassador  to  the 
United  States;  to  Lord  Northcliffe,  owner  of 
The  Times  and  The  Daily  Mail;  to  Ralph 
Pulitzer,  Esq.,  president,  and  C.  M.  Lincoln, 
Esq.,  managing  editor,  of  The  New  York  World; 
to  Major-General  Ryerson,  of  the  Canadian 
Overseas  Contingent;  to  Captain  Count  Gerard 
de  Ganay,  who  was  m}'  companion  from  end 
to  end  of  the  western  battle-line;  to  Messrs. 
Ponsot,  Alexis  Leger,  and  Henri  Hoppenot,  of 
the  Bureau  de  la  Presse;  to  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Spencer  Cosby,  military  attache  of  the  Amer- 
ican embassy  in  Paris;  to  Captain  John  W. 
Barker,  of  the  American  Military  Mission  in 
France;   to  Honorable  Walter  V.  R.  Berry;  to 

Charles    Prince,    Esq.,    Herhcrt    Corey,    Esq., 

vii 


viii         AN  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Lincoln  Eyre,  Esq.,  and  William  Philip  Simms, 
Esq.,  who  on  a  score  of  occasions  have  proved 
themselves  my  friends;  and  finally  to  James 
Hazen  Hyde,  Esq.,  whose  kindness  I  can  never 
fully  repay.  To  each  of  these  gentlemen  I  owe 
a  debt  of  gratitude  which  I  shall  not  forget. 

E.  Alexander  Powell. 

Hotel  de  Crillon,  Paris, 
November,  1915. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT  vu 

CH APXER 

I.    IN  THE  FIELD  WITH  THE  FRENCH  i 

II.    ON  THE  BRITISH  BATTLE-LINE  56 

III.  CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES  97 

IV.  THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE  120 
V.    THE  FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE  154 

VI.    THE  CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS  190 

VIL    THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY  215 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"High-explosive!" Frontispiece 

FACING  PACE 

French  trenches  in  the  sand-dunes  of  the  Belgian  littoral    .  4 

The  watch  on  the  Aisne 5 

The  taking  of  Neuville  St.  Vaast 12 

French  infantry  going  into  action 13 

Dragoons  going  into  action 14 

The  effect  of  shrapnel  from  a  French  "seventy-five"  on  a 

German  battery 15 

French  155-millimetre  gun  shelling  the  German  trenches  on 

the  Aisne 18 

French  artillery  officers,  in  an  observatory  on  the  Aisne, 

watching  the  effect  of  shell-fire  on  the  German  trenches  19 

In  an  underground  first-aid  station 30 

Zouaves  carrying  a  German  position  in  the  Belgian  sand- 
dunes  by  storm 31 

In  the  Argonne 38 

An  observing  officer  directing  the  fire  of  a  French  battery 

three  miles  behind  him 39 

The  mass  before  the  battle 54 

What  a  38-centimetre  shell,  fired  from  a  gun  twenty-three 

miles  away,  did  in  Dunkirk 55 

xi 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

London  buses  at  the  front 64 

British  field-kitchens  on  the  march  in  Flanders       ....      65 

Machine-gun  squad  wearing  masks  as  a  protection  against 
the  asphyxiating  gas  with  which  the  Germans  precede 
their  attacks       84 


A  British  battery  in  action 85 

Group     ...      86 


"Bodies,  long  months  dead,  rotting  amid 
the  wire  entanglements"      .     .     . 

"Imagine  what  it  must  be  like  to  sleep 
in  a  hole  in  the  earth,  into  which  you 
have  to  crawl  on  all  fours,  like  an 
animal  into  its  lair" 


French    high-explosive    shells    bursting    on    the    German 

trenches 87 

In  a  bomb-proof  gun-pit 98 

French  trenches  on  the  Somme 99 

In  the  French  trenches  on  the  Yser 100 

Campaigning  in  the  Vosges 10 1 

What  the  Germans  did  to  the  church  at  Ribecourt     .     .     .  106 

On  the  summit  of  the  Vosges 107 

On  the  Lac  Noir 114 

The  penalty  for  treason IIS 

Troglodyte  dwellings  in  Alsace 124 

The  straggling  columns  of  unkempt,  unshaven  men  were  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  helmeted  giants  on  gigantic 

horses  who  guarded  them 125 

In  the  trenches  in  Alsace 136 

Convoy  of  German  prisoners  guarded  by  Moroccan  Spahis  137 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xiil 

FACING  PAGE 

A  French  smoke  bomb 14° 

With  hand-grenades  in  the  trenches 141 

Chevaux-de-frise  and  movable  entanglements 150 

Taking  precautions  against  a  gas  attack 151 

The  battle-field  of  Champagne 154 

Bringing  in  the  wounded  during  the  battle  of  Champagne  155 

The  battle  of  Champagne 166 

The  battle-field  of  Champagne,  showing  the  French  high- 
explosive  shells  bursting  on  the  German  trenches     .     .  167 

Fighting  in  a  quarrel  that  is  not  his  own       172 

The  first-line  German  trenches  captured  by  the  French  in 

Champagne 173 

This  crater,  seventy  feet  deep  and  twice  that  in  diameter, 
was  caused  by  the  explosion  of  a  mine.    In  the  terrific 

blast  five  hundred  Germans  perished 174 

German  officers  captured  during  the  battle  of  Champagne  175 

The  price  of  victory 176 

Instruction  against  gas  attacks 177 

"Men  were  at  work  rolling  up  the  barbed  wire  in  the  cap- 
tured German  entanglements" 180 

The  thousands  upon  thousands  of  empty  brass  shell-cases 
with  which  the  battle-fields  arc  strewn  are  collected 

and  sent  back  to  the  factory  for  reloading       .     .     .     .  181 

Mounted  on  the  German  trench-walls  were  revolving  steel 

turrets  containing  quick-firing  guns         182 

"Brown-skinned  men  from  North  Africa  in  turbans  and 

burnooscs" '8^ 


xiv  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

Motor-buses    with    wire-netting    tops    filled    with    carrier 

pigeons 184 

German  prisoners  came  by,  carrying  on  their  shoulders 
stretchers  on  which  lay  the  stiff,  stark  forms  of  dead 
men 185 

Luneville  from  an  aeroplane 200 

French  anti-aircraft  gun  in  action  against  a  German  aero- 
plane      201 

When  the  chickens  come  home  to  roost 206 

Anti-aircraft  guns,  posted  outside  the  towns,  are  ready  to 

give  a  warm  reception  to  an  aerial  intruder     ....     207 

"Two  soldiers  lifted  him  onto  a  stretcher  and  carried  him 
between  interminable  walls  of  brown  earth  to  the  dress- 
ing-station"     236 

Unloading  wounded  at  a  hospital  in  northern  France      .     .     237 

Red  Cross  men  getting  wounded  out  of  a  bombarded  town 

in  Flanders 244 

Bringing  in  the  harvest  of  the  guns 245 

"Every  house  and  farmyard  for  miles  around  was  filled  with 

wounded  and  still  they  came  streaming  in"     ...     .     250 

"The  paths  of  glory  lead " 251 


All  illustrations  but  those  specifically  acknowledged  were  taken 
by  the  Photographic  Service  of  the  French  Armies  and  are  here 
reproduced  by  special  permission. 


VIVE   LA   FRANCEI 


IN  THE  FIELD  WITH  THE  FRENCH 

BEFORE  going  to  France  I  was  told 
that  the  French  were  very  stingy  with 
their  war.  I  was  told  that  the  only 
fighting  I  would  be  permitted  to  see  would 
be  on  moving-picture  screens.  I  was  assured 
that  war  correspondents  were  about  as  wel- 
come as  the  small-pox.  But  I  found  that  I 
had  been  misinformed.  So  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned they  have  been  as  generous  with  their 
war  as  a  Kentucky  colonel  is  with  mint-juleps. 
They  have,  in  fact,  been  so  willing  to  let  me 
get  close  up  to  where  things  were  happening 
that,  on  one  or  two  occasions,  it  looked  as 
though  I  would  never  see  the  Statue  of  Lib- 
erty again.  I  do  not  wish  to  give  the  im- 
pression, however,  that  these  facilities  for 
flirting  with  sudden  death  are  handed  out 
promiscuously  to  all  who  apply  for  them.  To 
obtain  me  permission  to  see  the  French  fight- 


2  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

ing-machine  in  action  required  the  united 
influence  of  three  Cabinet  Ministers,  a  British 
peer,  two  ambassadors,  a  score  of  newspapers 
— and  the  patience  of  Job. 

Unless  you  have  attempted  to  pierce  it,  it 
is  impossible  to  comprehend  the  marvellous 
veil  of  secrecy  which  the  Allied  Governments 
have  cast  over  their  mihtary  operations.  I 
wonder  if  you,  who  will  read  this,  realize  that, 
though  the  German  trenches  can  be  reached 
by  motor-car  in  ninety  minutes  from  the  Rue 
de  la  Paix,  it  is  as  impossible  for  an  unauthor- 
ized person  to  get  within  sound,  much  less 
within  sight,  of  them  as  it  would  be  for  a 
tourist  to  stroll  into  Buckingham  Palace  and 
have  a  friendly  chat  with  King  George.  The 
good  old  days  in  Belgium,  when  the  corre- 
spondents went  flitting  light-heartedly  about 
the  zone  of  operations  on  bicycles  and  in  taxi- 
cabs  and  motor-cars,  have  passed,  never  to 
return.  Imagine  a  battle  in  which  more  men 
were  engaged  and  the  results  of  which  were 
more  momentous  than  Waterloo,  Gettysburg, 
and  Sedan  combined — a  battle  in  which  Europe 
lost  more  men  than  the  North  lost  in  the  whole 
of  the  Civil  War — being  fought  at,  let  us  say, 


IN  THE  FIELD  3 

New  Haven,  Conn.,  in  December,  and  the 
people  of  New  York  and  Boston  not  knowing 
the  details  of  that  battle,  the  names  of  the 
regiments  engaged,  the  losses,  or,  indeed,  the 
actual  result,  until  the  following  March.  It 
is,  in  fact,  not  the  slightest  exaggeration  to 
say  that  the  people  of  Europe  knew  more  about 
the  wars  that  were  fought  on  the  South  African 
veldt  and  on  the  Manchurian  steppes  than  they 
do  about  this,  the  greatest  of  all  wars,  which  is 
being  fought  literally  at  their  front  doors.  So 
that  when  a  correspondent  does  succeed  in 
penetrating  the  veil  of  mystery,  when  he  ob- 
tains permission  to  see  with  his  own  eyes 
something  of  what  is  happening  on  that  five- 
hundred-mile-long  slaughter-house  and  cess- 
pool combined  which  is  called  "the  front,"  he 
has  every  excuse  for  self-congratulation. 

When  the  Ministry  of  War  had  reluctantly 
issued  me  the  little  yellow  card,  with  my 
photograph  pasted  on  it,  which,  so  far  as  this 
war  is  concerned,  is  the  equivalent  of  Aladdin's 
lamp  and  the  magic  carpet  put  together,  and  I 
had  become  for  the  time  being  the  guest  of  the 
nation,  my  path  was  everywhere  made  smooth 
before  me.     I  was  ciceroned  by  a  stafF-officer 


(( 


VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 


in  a  beautiful  sky-blue  uniform,  and  other 
officers  were  waiting  to  explain  things  to  me 
in  the  various  divisions  through  which  we 
passed.  We  travelled  by  motor-car,  with  a 
pilot-car  ahead  and  a  baggage-car  behind,  and 
we  went  so  fast  that  it  took  two  people  to  tell 
about  it,  one  to  shout,  "Here  they  come  !"  and 
another,  "There  they  go!" 

Leaving  Paris,  white  and  beautiful  in  the 
spring  sunshine,  behind  us,  we  tore  down  the 
historic  highway  which  still  bears  the  title  of 
the  Route  de  Flandre,  down  which  countless 
thousands  of  other  men  had  hastened,  in  bygone 
centuries,  to  the  fighting  in  the  north.  The 
houses  of  the  city  thinned  and  disappeared,  and 
we  came  to  open  fields  across  which  writhed, 
like  monstrous  yellow  serpents,  the  zigzag  lines 
of  trenches.  The  whole  countryside  from  the 
Aisne  straightaway  to  the  walls  of  Paris  is  one 
vast  network  of  trenches  and  barbed-wire  en- 
tanglements, and,  even  in  the  improbable 
event  of  the  enemy  breaking  through  the  pres- 
ent line,  he  would  be  little  better  off  than  he 
was  before.  The  fields  between  the  trenches 
were  being  ploughed  by  women,  driving  sleek 
white    oxen,    but    the    furrows   were    scarcely 


French  trenches  in  the  sand-dunes  of  the  Belgian  littoral. 

Here  begins  that  four-hundred-mllc-lonK  line  of  trenches  which  stretches  across 
Europe  like  a  munstruus  and  deadly  snake. 


IN  THE  FIELD  5 

ever  straight,  for  every  few  yards  they  would 
turn  aside  to  avoid  a  turf-covered  mound  sur- 
mounted by  a  rude  cross  and  a  scarlet  kepi. 
For  half  a  hundred  miles  this  portion  of  France 
is  one  vast  cemetery,  for  it  was  here  that  von 
Kluck  made  his  desperate  attempt  to  break 
through  to  Paris,  and  it  was  here  that  JofFre, 
in  the  greatest  battle  of  all  time,  drove  the 
German  legions  back  across  the  Marne  and 
ended  their  dream  of  entering  the  French 
capital.  We  whirled  through  villages  whose 
main  streets  are  lined  with  the  broken,  black- 
ened shells  of  what  had  once  been  shops  and 
dweUings.  At  once  I  felt  at  home,  for  with 
this  sort  of  thing  I  had  grown  only  too  famiHar 
in  Belgium  during  the  earlier  days  of  the  war. 
But  here  the  Germans  were  either  careless  or 
in  a  hurry,  for  they  had  left  many  buildings 
standing.  In  Belgium  they  made  a  more 
finished  job  of  it.  Nothing  better  illustrates 
the  implicit  confidence  which  the  French 
people  have  in  their  army,  and  in  its  ultimate 
success,  than  the  fact  that  in  all  these  towns 
through  which  we  passed  the  people  were 
hard  at  work  rebuilding  their  shattered  homes, 
though    the    strokes    of   their    hammers    were 


6  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

echoed  by  the  sullen  boom  of  German  cannon. 
To  me  there  was  something  approaching  the 
subHme  in  these  impoverished  peasants  turn- 
ing with  stout  hearts  and  smiling  faces  to  the 
rebuilding  of  their  homes  and  the  retilling 
of  their  fields.  To  these  patient,  toil-worn 
men  and  women  I  Hft  my  hat  in  respect  and 
admiration.  They,  no  less  than  their  sons 
and  husbands  and  brothers  in  the  trenches, 
are  fighting  the  battles  of  France. 

As  we  approached  the  front  the  traditional 
brick-red  trousers  and  kepis  still  worn  by  the 
second-line  men  gave  way  to  the  new  uniform 
of  silvery-blue — the  color  of  early  morning. 
There  were  soldiers  everywhere.  Every  town 
and  hamlet  through  which  we  passed  was  alive 
with  them.  The  highways  were  choked  with 
troops  of  all  arms;  cuirassiers,  with  their 
mediaeval  steel  helmets  and  breastplates  Hnen- 
covered;  dragoons,  riding  under  thickets  of 
gleaming  lances;  zouaves  in  short  blue  jack- 
ets and  baggy  red  breeches;  spahis  in  tur- 
bans and  Senegalese  in  tarbooshes  and  Mo- 
roccans in  burnooses;  chasseurs  d' Afrique  in 
sky-blue  and  scarlet;  infantry  of  the  fine  in 
all  the  shades  of  blue  that  can  be  produced 


IN  THE  FIELD  7 

by  dyes  and  by  the  weather;  mile-long  strings 
of  motor  transports;  field  batteries;  pon- 
toon trains;  balloon  corps;  ambulances  with 
staring  scarlet  crosses  painted  on  their  canvas 
covers — all  the  nuts  and  bolts  and  springs 
and  screws  which  go  to  compose  what  has 
become,  after  months  of  testing  and  improve- 
ments, as  efficient  a  killing  machine  as  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  And  it  is,  I  am  convinced, 
eventual!}'  going  to  do  the  business.  It  struck 
me  as  having  all,  or  nearly  all,  of  the  merits 
of  the  German  organization  zvith  the  human 
element  added. 

When  only  a  short  distance  in  the  rear  of  the 
firing-line  we  left  the  car  and  proceeded  on  foot 
down  a  winding  country  road  which  debouched 
quite  suddenly  into  a  great,  saucer-shaped 
valley.  Its  gentle  slopes  were  checkered  with 
the  brown  squares  of  fresh-ploughed  fields  and 
the  green  ones  of  sprouting  grain.  From  be- 
yond a  near-by  ridge  came  the  mutter  of 
artillery,  and  every  now  and  then  there  ap- 
peared against  the  turquoise  sky  what  looked 
like  a  patch  of  cotton-wool  but  was  in  reality 
bursting  shrapnel.  The  far  end  of  the  valley 
was  filled  with  what  appeared   at  first  glance 


8  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

to  be  a  low-hanging  cloud  of  gray-blue  mist, 
but  which,  as  we  drew  nearer,  resolved  itself 
into  dense  masses  of  troops  drawn  up  in  review 
formation — infantry  at  the  right,  cavalry  at 
the  left,  and  guns  in  the  centre,  I  had  heard 
much  of  the  invisible  qualities  of  the  new  field 
uniform  of  the  French  Army,  but  I  had  here- 
tofore believed  it  to  be  greatly  inferior  to  the 
German  greenish  gray.  But  I  have  changed 
my  mind.  At  three  hundred  yards  twenty 
thousand  men  could  scarcely  be  distinguished 
from  the  landscape.  The  only  colorful  note 
was  struck  by  the  dragoons,  who  still  retain 
their  suicidal  uniform  of  scarlet  breeches,  blue 
tunic,  and  the  helmet  with  its  horse-tail  plume, 
though  a  concession  has  been  made  to  practi- 
cahty  by  covering  the  latter  with  tan  linen. 
The  majority  of  the  French  woollen  mills  being 
in  the  region  held  by  the  Germans,  it  has  been 
possible  to  provide  only  a  portion  of  the  army 
with  the  new  uniform.  As  a  result  of  this 
shortage  of  cloth,  thousands  of  soldiers  have 
had  recourse  to  the  loose  corduroy  trousers 
common  among  the  peasantry,  while  for  the 
territorials  almost  any  sort  of  a  jacket  will 
pass  muster  provided  it  is  of  a  neutral  color 


IN  THE   FIELD  9 

and  has  the  regimental  numerals  on  the  col- 
lar. Those  soldiers  who  can  afford  to  provide 
their  own  uniforms  almost  invariably  have 
them  made  of  khaki,  cut  after  the  more  prac- 
tical British  pattern,  with  cap-covers  of  the 
same  material.  Owing  to  this  latitude  in  the 
matter  of  clothing,  the  French  army  during 
the  first  year  of  the  war  presented  an  extraor- 
dinarily variegated  and  nondescript  appear- 
ance, though  this  lack  of  uniformity  is  gradu- 
ally being  remedied. 

At  three  o'clock  a  rolling  cloud  of  dust  sud- 
denly appeared  on  the  road  from  Compiegne, 
and  out  of  it  tore  a  long  hne  of  military  cars, 
travelling  at  express-train  speed.  All  save  one 
were  in  war  coats  of  elephant  gray.  The  ex- 
ception was  a  low-slung  racer  painted  a  canary- 
yellow.  Tearing  at  top  speed  up  the  valley, 
it  came  to  a  sudden  stop  before  the  centre  of 
the  mile-long  line  of  soldiery.  A  mile  of 
fighting  men  stiffened  to  attention;  a  mile 
of  rifie  barrels  formed  a  hedge  of  burnished 
steel;  the  drums  gave  the  long  roll  and  the 
thirteen  ruffles;  the  colors  swept  the  ground; 
the  massed  bands  burst  into  the  splendid 
strains  of  the  Marseillaise,   and   a   little  man, 


lo  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

gray-mustached,  gray-bearded,  inclined  to 
stoutness,  but  with  the  unmistakable  carriage 
of  a  soldier,  descended  from  the  yellow  car 
and,  followed  by  a  staff  in  uniforms  of  light 
blue,  of  dark  blue,  of  tan,  of  green,  of  scarlet, 
walked  briskly  down  the  motionless  Hues.  I 
was  having  the  unique  privilege  of  seeing  a 
President  of  France  reviewing  a  French  army 
almost  within  sight  of  the  invader  and  actu- 
ally within  sound  of  his  guns.  It  was  under 
almost  parallel  circumstances  that,  upward  of 
half  a  century  ago,  on  the  banks  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock, another  President  of  another  mighty 
republic  reviewed  another  army,  which  was 
likewise  fighting  the  battles  of  civiHzation. 

Raymond  Poincare  is  by  no  means  an  easy 
man  to  describe.  He  is  the  only  French 
President  within  my  memory  who  looks  the 
part  of  ruler.  In  his  person  are  centred,  as  it 
were,  the  aspirations  of  France,  for  he  is  a 
native  of  Lorraine.  He  was  a  captain  of  Al- 
pine Chasseurs  in  his  younger  days  and  shows 
the  result  of  his  military  training  in  his  erect 
and  vigorous  bearing.  Were  you  to  see  him 
apart  from  his  official  surroundings  you  might 
well   take    him,   with    his    air   of  energy    and 


IN  THE  FIELD  ii 

authority,  for  a  great  emplo3^er  or  a  captain 
of  industry.  Take  twenty  years  from  the  age 
of  Andrew  Carnegie,  trim  his  beard  to  a  point, 
throw  his  shoulders  back  and  his  chest  out,  and 
you  will  have  as  good  an  idea  as  I  can  give  you 
of  the  war-time  President  of  France. 

At  the  President's  right  walked  a  thick-set, 
black  mustached  man  whose  rather  shabby 
blue  serge  suit  and  broad-brimmed  black  slouch 
hat  were  in  strange  contrast  to  the  brilliant 
uniforms  about  him.  Yet  this  man  in  the 
wrinkled  clothes,  with  the  unmilitary  bearing, 
exercised  more  power  than  the  President  and 
all  the  officers  who  followed  him;  a  word 
from  him  could  make  or  break  generals,  could 
move  armies;  he  was  Millerand,  War  Minister 
of  France. 

After  passing  down  the  lines  and  making  a 
minute  inspection  of  the  soldiers  and  their 
equipment,  the  President  took  his  stand  in 
front  of  the  grouped  standards,  and  the  of- 
ficers and  men  who  were  to  be  decorated  for 
gallantry  ranged  themselves  before  him,  some 
with  bandaged  heads,  some  with  their  arms 
in  slings,  one  hobbling  painfully  along  on 
crutches.     Stepping  forward,   as  the  Minister 


12  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

of  War  read  off  their  names  from  a  list,  the 
President  pinned  to  the  tunic  of  each  man  the 
coveted  bit  of  ribbon  and  enamel  and  kissed 
him  on  either  cheek,  while  the  troops  presented 
arms  and  the  massed  bands  played  the  an- 
them. On  general  principles  I  should  think 
that  the  President  would  rebel  at  having  to 
kiss  so  many  men,  even  though  they  are  heroes 
and  have  been  freshly  shaved  for  the  occasion. 
I  might  mention  in  passing  that  the  decora- 
tion most  highly  prized  by  the  French  soldier 
is  not,  as  is  popularly  supposed,  the  Legion 
of  Honor,  which,  like  the  Iron  Cross,  has 
greatly  depreciated  because  of  its  wholesale 
distribution  (it  is  the  policy  of  the  German 
military  authorities,  I  believe,  to  give  the 
Iron  Cross  to  one  in  every  twenty  men),  but 
the  Medaille  MiHtaire,  which,  like  the  Victoria 
Cross  and  the  Prussian  decoration.  Pour  le 
Merite,  is  awarded  only  for  deeds  of  the  most 
conspicuous  bravery.  The  Medaille  Militaire, 
moreover,  can  be  won  only  by  privates  and 
non-commissioned  officers  or  by  generals, 
though  the  Croix  de  Guerre,  the  little  bronze 
cross  which  signifies  that  the  wearer  has  been 
mentioned    in    despatches,   is    awarded    to  all 


The  taking  of  Ncuvillc  St.  Vaast. 

French  infantry  cnKaKcJ  in  liuusc-to-huusc  fighting. 


From  a  photograph  copyright  by  M.  Rol. 

French  infantry  going  into  action. 

"These  weret  he  famous  poilus.  the  bearded  ones,  .   .   .  _a  moving  cloud  of 
grayish  blue  under  shifling,  shimmering,  slanting  lines  of  steel." 


IN  THE   FIELD  13 

ranks  and  occasionally  to  women,  among  the 
decorees  being  Madame  Alexis  Carrel,  the  wife 
of  the  famous  surgeon. 

The  picturesque  business  of  recognizing  the 
brave  being  concluded,  the  review  of  the  troops 
began.  Topping  a  rise,  they  swept  down  upon 
us  in  line  of  column — a  moving  cloud  of  gra}'- 
ish  blue  under  shifting,  shimmering,  slanting 
lines  of  steel.  Company  after  compan}^,  regi- 
ment after  regiment,  brigade  after  brigade, 
swept  past,  businesslike  as  a  locomotive,  im- 
placable as  a  trip-hammer,  irresistible  as  a 
steam-roller,  moving  with  mechanical  precision 
to  the  exultant  strains  of  the  march  of  the 
Sambre  et  Meuse.  These  were  the  famous 
poilus,  the  bearded  ones,  the  men  with  hair  on 
their  chests.  Their  uniforms  were  not  immacu- 
late. They  were  faded  by  wind  and  rain  and 
sometimes  stained  with  blood.  On  their  boots 
was  the  mud  of  the  battle-fields  along  the 
Aisne.  Fresh  from  the  trenches  though  they 
were,  they  were  as  pink-cheeked  as  athletes, 
and  they  marched  with  the  buoyancy  of  men 
in  high  spirits  and  in  perfect  health.  Here 
before  me  was  a  section  of  that  wall  of  steel 
which   stands   unbroken  between  Western  Eu- 


14  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

rope  and  the  Teutonic  hordes.  Hard  on  the 
heels  of  the  infantry  came  the  guns — the  fa- 
mous "75's" — a  score  of  batteries,  well  horsed 
and  well  equipped,  at  a  spanking  trot.  A 
little  space  to  let  the  foot  and  guns  get  out 
of  the  way,  and  then  we  heard  the  wild,  shrill 
clangor  of  the  cavalry  trumpets  peahng  the 
charge.  Over  the  rise  they  came,  helmeted 
giants  on  gigantic  horses.  The  earth  shook 
beneath  their  gallop.  The  scarlet  breeches  of 
the  riders  gleamed  fiery  in  the  sunHght;  the 
horsehair  plumes  of  the  helmets  floated  out 
behind;  the  upraised  sword-blades  formed  a 
forest  of  ghstening  steel.  As  they  went 
thundering  past  us  in  a  whirlwind  of  dust  and 
color  they  rose  in  their  stirrups,  and  high  above 
the  clank  of  steel  and  the  trample  of  hoofs 
came  the  deep-mouthed  Gallic  battle-cry:  "Five 
la  France  !     Five  la  France  !'' 

To  have  had  a  battery  of  French  artillery 
go  into  action  and  pour  a  torrent  of  steel-cased 
death  upon  the  enemy's  trenches  for  one's 
special  benefit  is,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  a  cour- 
tesy which  the  General  Staff  has  seen  fit  to 
extend  to  no  other  correspondent.  That  the 
guns  were  of  the  new   105-millimetre  model. 


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IN  THE   FIELD  15 

which  are  claimed  to  be  as  much  superior  to 
the  "75's"  as  the  latter  are  to  all  other  field 
artillery,  made  the  exhibition  all  the  more 
interesting.  The  road  which  we  had  to  take 
in  order  to  reach  this  particular  battery  leads 
for  several  miles  across  an  open  plateau  within 
full  view  of  the  German  positions.  As  we 
approached  this  danger  zone  the  stafF-ofiicer 
who  accompanied  me  spoke  to  our  driver, 
who  opened  up  the  throttle,  and  we  took  that 
stretch  of  exposed  highway  as  a  frightened  cat 
takes  the  top  of  a  backyard  fence.  "Merely  a 
matter  of  precaution,"  explained  my  com- 
panion. "Sometimes  when  the  Germans  see 
a  car  travelling  along  this  road  they  send  a  few 
shells  across  in  the  hope  of  getting  a  general. 
There's  no  use  in  taking  unnecessary  chances." 
Though  I  didn't  say  so,  it  struck  me  that  I  was 
in  considerably  more  danger  from  the  driving 
than  I  was  from  a  German  shell. 

Leaving  the  car  in  the  shelter  of  the  ridge 
on  which  the  battery  was  posted,  we  ascended 
the  steep  hillside  on  foot.  I  noticed  that  the 
slope  we  were  traversing  was  pitted  with 
miniature  craters,  any  one  of  which  was  large 
enough    to   hold    a    barrel.     "It    might    be   as 


i6  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

well  to  hurry  across  here,"  the  artillery  officer 
who  was  acting  as  our  guide  casually  remarked. 
"Last  evening  the  Germans  dropped  eight 
hundred  shells  on  this  field  that  we  are  cross- 
ing, and  one  never  knows,  of  course,  when  they 
will  do  it  again." 

Part  way  up  the  slope  we  entered  what  ap- 
peared to  be  a  considerable  grove  of  young 
trees.  Upon  closer  inspection,  however,  I 
discovered  that  it  was  not  a  natural  grove  but 
an  artificial  one,  hundreds  of  sapHngs  having 
been  brought  from  elsewhere  and  set  upright 
in  the  ground.  Soon  I  saw  the  reason,  for  in 
a  little  cleared  space  in  the  heart  of  this  imita- 
tion wood,  mounted  on  what  looked  not  unlike 
gigantic  step-ladders,  were  two  field-guns  with 
their  muzzles  pointing  skyward.  "These  guns 
are  for  use  against  aircraft,"  explained  the 
officer  in  charge.  "The  German  airmen  are 
constantly  trying  to  locate  our  batteries,  and 
in  order  to  discourage  their  inquisitiveness 
we've  put  these  guns  in  position."  The  guns 
were  of  the  regulation  soixante-quinze  pattern, 
but  so  elevated  that  the  wheels  were  at  the 
height  of  a  man's  head  from  the  ground,  the 
barrels   thus  being  incHned  at  such  an  acute 


IN  THE   FIELD  17 

angle  that,  by  means  of  a  sort  of  turntable  on 
which  the  platforms  were  mounted,  the  gunners 
w^ere  able  to  sweep  the  sky.  "This,"  said  the 
artillery  officer,  calling  my  attention  to  a 
curious-looking  instrument,  "is  the  telemeter. 
By  means  of  it  we  are  able  to  obtain  the  exact 
altitude  of  the  aircraft  at  which  we  are  firing, 
and  thus  know  at  what  elevation  to  set  our 
guns.  It  is  as  simple  as  it  is  ingenious.  There 
are  two  apertures,  one  for  each  eye.  In  one 
the  aircraft  is  seen  right  side  up;  in  the  other 
it  is  inverted.  By  turning  this  thumbscrew 
the  images  are  brought  together.  When  one 
is  superimposed  exactly  over  the  other  the 
altitude  is  shown  in  metres  on  this  dial  below. 
Then  we  open  on  the  airman  with  shrapnel." 
Since  these  guns  were  placed  in  position  the 
German  air-scouts  have  found  it  extremely 
hazardous  to  play  peek-a-boo  from  the  clouds. 
A  few  minutes'  walk  along  the  ridge  brought 
us  to  the  battery  of  105's,  which  was  the  real 
object  of  our  visit.  The  guns  were  not  posted 
on  the  summit  of  the  ridge,  as  a  layman  might 
suppose,  but  a  quarter  of  a  mile  behind  it, 
so  that  the  ridge  itself,  a  dense  forest,  and  the 
river   Aisne    intervened    between    the    battery 


i8  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

and  the  German  position.  The  guns  were 
sunk  in  pits  so  ingeniously  masked  with  shrubs 
and  branches  that  the  keenest-eyed  airman, 
flying  low  overhead,  would  have  seen  nothing 
to  arouse  his  suspicions.  Fifty  feet  away  one 
could  detect  nothing  about  that  apparently 
innocent  clump  of  tangled  vegetation  to  sug- 
gest that  it  concealed  an  amazing  quantity 
of  potential  death.  This  battery  had  been 
here  through  the  winter,  and  the  gunners  had 
utilized  the  time,  which  hung  heavy  on  their 
hands,  in  making  themselves  comfortable  and 
in  beautifying  their  surroundings.  With  the 
taste  and  ingenuity  so  characteristic  of  the 
French,  they  had  transformed  their  battery 
into  a  sylvan  grotto.  The  earthen  walls  of 
the  gun-pits  were  kept  in  place  by  deftly 
woven  wattles,  and  the  paths  leading  to  them 
had  borders  of  white  sand,  on  which  were 
patriotic  mottoes  in  colored  pebbles.  Scat- 
tered about  were  ingeniously  constructed  rus- 
tic seats  and  tables.  Within  ten  feet  of  one 
of  the  great  gray  guns  a  bed  of  hyacinths 
made  the  air  heavy  with  their  fragrance.  The 
next  gun-pit  was  banked  about  with  yellow 
crocus.     Hanging  from  the  arbor  which  shielded 


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IN  THE   FIELD  19 

another  of  the  steel  monsters  were  baskets 
made  of  moss  and  bark,  in  which  were  grow- 
ing violets.  At  a  rustic  table,  under  a  sort  of 
pergola,  a  soldier  was  painting  a  picture  in 
water-colors.  It  was  a  good  picture.  I  saw 
it  afterward  on  exhibition  in  the  Salon  des 
Humoristes  in  Paris.  A  few  yards  back  of 
each  gun-emplacement  were  cave-like  shelters, 
dug  in  the  hillside,  in  which  the  men  sleep, 
and  in  which  they  take  refuge  during  the 
periodic  shell-storms  which  visit  them.  Those 
into  which  I  went  were  warm  and  dry  and  not 
at  all  uncomfortable.  Over  the  entrance  to 
one  of  these  troglodyte  dwellings  was  a  sign 
announcing  that  it  was  the  Villa  des  Roses. 

"Do  the  Germans  know  the  position  of  these 
guns?"  I  asked  the  battery  commander. 

"Not  exactly,  though  they  have,  of  course, 
a  pretty  general  idea." 

"Then  you  are  not  troubled  by  German 
shells,"  I  remarked. 

"Indeed  we  are,"  was  the  answer.  "Though 
they  have  not  been  able  to  locate  us  exactly, 
they  know  that  we  are  somewhere  at  the  back 
of  this  ridge,  so  every  now  and  then  they  at- 
tempt to  clear  us  out  by  means  of  progressive 


20  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

fire.  That  is,  they  start  in  at  the  summit, 
and  by  gradually  increasing  the  elevation  of 
their  guns,  systematically  sweep  the  entire  re- 
verse slope  of  the  ridge,  so  that  some  of  their 
shells  are  almost  certain  to  drop  in  on  us.  Do 
you  appreciate,  however,  that,  though  we  have 
now  been  in  this  same  position  for  nearly  six 
months,  though  not  a  day  goes  by  that  we  are 
not  under  fire,  and  though  a  number  of  my 
men  have  been  killed  and  wounded,  we  have 
never  seen  the  target  at  which  we  are  firing 
and  we  have  never  seen  a  German  soldier?" 

A  ten-minute  walk  across  the  open  table- 
land which  lay  in  front  of  the  battery,  and 
which  forms  the  summit  of  the  ridge,  then 
through  a  dense  bit  of  forest,  and  we  found 
ourselves  at  the  entrance  to  one  of  those  secret 
ohservatoires  from  which  the  French  observers 
keep  an  unceasing  watch  on  the  movements  of 
the  enemy,  and  by  means  of  telephones,  con- 
trol the  fire  of  their  own  batteries  with  in- 
credible accuracy.  This  particular  ohservatoire 
occupied  the  mouth  of  a  cave  on  the  precipi- 
tous hillside  above  the  Aisne,  being  rendered 
invisible  by  a  cleverly  arranged  screen  of 
bushes.     Pinned    to    the    earthen    walls    were 


IN  THE   FIELD  21 

contour  maps  and  fire-control  charts;  power- 
ful telescopes  mounted  on  tripods  brought  the 
German  trenches  across  the  river  so  close  to  us 
that,  had  a  German  soldier  been  incautious 
enough  to  show  himself,  we  could  almost  have 
seen  the  spike  upon  his  helmet;  and  a  military 
telephonist  with  receivers  clamped  to  his  ears 
sat  at  a  switchboard  and  pushed  buttons  or 
pulled  out  pegs  just  as  the  telephone  girls  do 
in  New  York  hotels.  The  chief  difference  was 
that  this  operator,  instead  of  ordering  a  bell- 
hop to  take  ice-water  and  writing-paper  to 
Room  511,  would  tell  the  commander  of  a 
battery,  four  or  five  or  six  miles  awa}',  to  send 
over  to  a  German  trench,  which  he  would 
designate  by  number,  a  few  rounds  of  shrapnel 
or  high  explosive. 

An  officer  in  a  smart  uniform  of  dark  blue 
with  the  scarlet  facings  of  the  artillery  beckoned 
to  me  to  come  forward,  and  indicated  a  small 
opening  in  the  screen  of  branches. 

"Look  through  there,"  he  said,  "but  please 
be  extremely  careful  not  to  show  yourself  or 
to  shake  the  branches.  That  hillside  opposite 
us  is  dotted  with  the  enemy's  observatoireSy 
just   as  this  hillside  is  dotted  with   ours,   and 


22  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

they  are  constantly  sweeping  this  ridge  with 
powerful  glasses  in  the  hope  of  spotting  us 
and  shelling  us  out.  Thus  far  they've  not 
been  able  to  locate  us.  We've  had  better  luck, 
however.  We've  located  two  of  their  fire- 
control  stations,  and  put  them  out  of  business.'* 
As  I  was  by  no  means  anxious  to  have  a 
storm  of  shrapnel  bursting  about  my  head, 
I  was  careful  not  to  do  anything  which  might 
attract  the  attention  of  a  German  with  a 
telescope  glued  to  his  eye.  Peering  cautiously 
through  the  opening  in  the  screen  of  bushes, 
I  find  myself  looking  down  upon  the  winding 
course  of  the  Aisne;  to  the  southwest  I  could 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  pottery  roofs  of  Sois- 
sons,  while  from  the  farther  bank  of  the  river 
rose  the  gentle  slopes  which  formed  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  river  valley.  These  slopes 
were  everywhere  slashed  and  scarred  by  zig- 
zag lines  of  yellow  which  I  knew  to  be  the 
German  trenches.  But,  though  I  knew  that 
those  trenches  sheltered  an  invading  army, 
not  a  sign  of  hfe  was  to  be  seen.  Barring  a 
few  cows  grazing  contentedly  in  a  pasture,  the 
landscape  was  absolutely  deserted.  There 
was   something  strangely  oppressive   and   un- 


IN  THE   FIELD  23 

canny  about  this  great  stretch  of  fertile  coun- 
tryside, dotted  here  and  there  with  white- 
walled  cottages  and  clumps  of  farm  buildings, 
but  with  not  a  single  human  being  to  be  seen. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  opposite  ridge  I  knew 
that  the  German  batteries  were  posted,  just  as 
the  French  guns  were  stationed  out  of  sight 
at  the  back  of  the  ridge  on  which  I  stood.  This 
artillery  warfare  is,  after  all,  only  a  gigantic 
edition  of  the  old-fashioned  game  of  hide-and- 
seek.  The  chief  difference  being  that  when 
you  catch  sight  of  your  opponent,  instead  of 
saying  politely,  "I  see  you!"  you  try  to  kill 
him  with  a  three-inch  shell. 

A  soldier  set  a  tripod  in  position  and  on  It 
carefully  adjusted  a  powerful  telescope.  The 
colonel  motioned  me  to  look  through  it,  and 
suddenly  the  things  that  had  looked  like 
sinuous  yellow  lines  became  recognizable  as 
marvellously  constructed  earthworks. 

"Now,"  said  the  colonel,  "focus  your  glass 
on  that  trench  just  above  the  ruined  farm- 
house and  I  will  show  you  what  our  gunners 
can  do."  After  consulting  a  chart  with 
innumerable  radiating  blue  and  scarlet  lines 
which    was    pinned    to    a    drafting-table,    and 


24  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

making  some  hasty  calculations  with  a  pencil, 
he  gave  a  few  curt  orders  to  a  junior  officer 
who  sat  at  a  telephone  switchboard  with  re- 
ceivers clamped  to  his  ears.  The  young  officer 
spoke  some  cabalistic  figures  into  the  trans- 
mitter and  concluded  with  the  order:  '' Tir 
rapide." 

"Now,  Monsieur  Powell,"  called  the  colonel, 
"watch  the  trenches."  A  moment  later,  from 
somewhere  behind  the  ridge  at  the  back  of  us, 
came  in  rapid  succession  six  spHtting  crashes 
— bang!  bang!  bang!  bang!  bang!  bang!  A  frac- 
tion of  a  second  later  I  saw  six  puffs  of  black 
smoke  suddenly  appear  against  one  of  the  yel- 
low Hnes  on  the  distant  hillside;  six  fountains 
of  earth  shot  high  into  the  air. 

"Right  into  the  trenches!"  exclaimed  the 
colonel,  who  was  kneeUng  beside  me  with  his 
glasses  glued  to  his  eyes.  "Watch  once  more." 
Again  six  spHtting  crashes,  six  distant  puffs  of 
smoke,  and,  floating  back  to  us  a  moment  later, 
six  muffled  detonations. 

"The  battery  that  has  just  fired  is  four  miles 
from  those  trenches,"  remarked  the  colonel 
casually.     "Not  so  bad,  eh  ?" 

"It's  marvellous,"  I   answered,  but  all  the 


IN  THE   FIELD  25 

time  I  was"  wondering  how  many  lives  had 
been  snuffed  out  for  my  benefit  that  morning 
on  the  distant  hillside,  how  many  men  with 
whom  I  have  no  quarrel  had  been  maimed  for 
life,  how  many  women  had  been  left  husband- 
less,  how  many  children  fatherless. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  hasten  your  departure, 
Monsieur  Powell,"  apologized  the  colonel, 
"but  if  you  wish  to  get  back  to  your  car  with- 
out annoyance,  I  think  that  you  had  better 
be  starting.  We've  stirred  up  the  Boches,  and 
at  an}^  moment  now  their  guns  may  begin  to 
answer." 

He  knew  what  he  was  talking  about,  did  that 
colonel.  In  fact,  we  had  delayed  our  depar- 
ture too  long,  for  just  as  we  reached  the  edge 
of  the  wood,  and  started  across  the  open 
plateau  which  crov/ns  the  summit,  something 
hurtled  through  the  air  above  the  tree-tops 
with  a  sound  between  a  moan  and  a  snarl  and 
exploded  with  a  crash  Hke  a  thousand  cannon 
crackers  set  off  together  a  few  yards  in  front 
of  us.  Before  the  echoes  of  the  first  had  time 
to  die  away  came  another  and  yet  another. 
They  burst  to  the  right  of  us,  to  the  left  of  us, 
seemingly    all    around    us.     We   certainly   had 


26  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

stirred  up  the  Germans.  For  a  few  minutes 
we  were  in  a  very  warm  corner,  and  I  am  no 
stranger  to  shell-fire,  either.  At  first  we  de- 
cided to  make  a  dash  for  it  across  the  plateau, 
but  a  shell  which  burst  in  the  undergrowth 
not  thirty  feet  ahead  induced  us  to  change  our 
minds,  and  we  precipitately  retreated  to  the 
nearest  bomb-proof.  The  next  half-hour  we 
spent  snugly  and  securely  several  feet  below 
the  surface  of  the  earth,  while  shrapnel  whined 
overhead  like  bloodhounds  seeking  their  prey. 
Have  you  ever  heard  shrapnel  by  any  chance .? 
No .?  Well,  it  sounds  as  much  as  anything 
else  like  a  winter  gale  howling  through  the 
branches  of  a  pine-tree.  It  is  a  moan,  a  groan, 
a  shriek,  and  a  wail  rolled  into  one,  and  when 
the  explosion  comes  it  sounds  as  though  some 
one  had  touched  off  a  stick  of  dynamite  under 
a  grand  piano.  And  it  is  not  particularly 
cheering  to  know  that  the  ones  you  hear  do 
not  harm  you,  and  that  it  is  the  ones  you  do 
not  have  time  to  hear  that  send  you  to  the 
cemetery.  The  French  artillery  officers  tell 
me  that  the  German  ammunition  has  notice- 
ably deteriorated  of  late.  Well,  perhaps.  Still, 
I    hadn't   noticed   it.     It   was   thirty   minutes 


IN  THE   FIELD  27 

before  the  storm  of  shrapnel  slackened  and  it 
was  safe  to  start  for  the  car.  We  had  a  mile 
of  open  field  to  cross  with  shells  still  occasion- 
ally falling.  I  felt  like  a  man  wearing  a  silk 
hat  who  has  just  passed  a  gang  of  boys  engaged 
in  making  snowballs.  In  a  lifetime  largely 
made  up  of  interesting  experiences,  that  ex- 
hibition of  French  gunnery  will  always  stand 
out  as  one  of  the  most  interesting  things  I 
have  ever  seen.  But  all  the  way  back  to  head- 
quarters I  kept  wondering  about  those  men  in 
the  trenches  where  the  shells  had  fallen,  and 
about  the  women  and  children  who  are  waiting 
and  watching  and  praying  for  them  over  there 
across  the  Rhine. 

I  had  expressed  a  wish  to  visit  Soissons, 
and,  upon  communicating  w^th  division  head- 
quarters, permission  was  granted  and  the 
necessary  orders  issued.  Before  we  started, 
however,  I  was  told  quite  frankly  that  the 
military  authorities  accepted  no  responsibil- 
ity for  the  consequences  of  the  proposed  ex- 
cursion, for,  though  the  town  was  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  French,  it  was  under  almost 
constant  bombardment  by  the  Germans.  In 
order  to  get  the  setting  of  the  picture  clearly 


28  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

in  your  mind,  you  must  picture  two  parallel 
ranges  of  hills,  separated  by  a  wonderfully 
fertile  valley,  perhaps  three  miles  in  width, 
down  which  meanders,  with  many  twists  and 
hairpin  turns,  the  silver  ribbon  which  is  the 
Aisne.  On  its  north  bank,  at  a  gentle  bend  in 
the  river,  stands  the  quaint  old  town  of  Sois- 
sons,  so  hoary  with  antiquity  that  its  earher 
history  is  lost  in  the  mists  of  tradition.  Of 
its  normal  population  of  fifteen  thousand, 
when  I  was  there  only  a  few  score  remained, 
and  those  only  because  they  had  no  other 
place  to  go. 

A  sandstone  ridge  which  rises  abruptly 
from  the  south  bank  of  the  river  directly  op- 
posite Soissons  was  held  by  the  French,  and 
from  its  shelter  their  batteries  spat  unceasing 
defiance  at  the  Germans,  under  General  von 
Heeringen,  whose  trenches  lined  the  heights 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river  and  immediately 
back  of  the  town.  From  dawn  to  dark  and 
often  throughout  the  night,  the  screaming 
messengers  of  death  crisscrossed  above  the 
red-tiled  roofs  of  Soissons  and  served  to  make 
things  interesting  for  the  handful  of  inhabi- 
tants who  remained.    Every  now  and  then  the 


IN  THE   FIELD  29 

German  gunners,  apparently  for  no  reason 
save  pure  deviltry,  would  drop  a  few  shells 
into  the  middle  of  the  town.  They  argued,  no 
doubt,  that  it  would  keep  the  townsfolk  from 
becoming  ennuied  and  give  them  something  to 
occupy  their  minds. 

The  ridge  on  the  French  side  of  the  river  is 
literally  honej'combed  with  quarries,  tunnels, 
and  caverns,  many  of  these  subterranean  cham- 
bers being  as  large  and  as  curiously  formed 
as  the  grottoes  in  the  Mammoth  Cave.  Being 
weather-proof  as  well  as  shell-proof,  the  French 
had  turned  them  to  excellent  account,  utilizing 
them  for  barracks,  ammunition  stores,  fire- 
control  stations,  hospitals,  and  even  stables. 
In  fact,  I  can  recall  few  stranger  sights  than 
that  of  a  long  line  of  helmeted  horsemen,  com- 
prising a  whole  squadron  of  dragoons,  disap- 
pearing into  the  mouth  of  one  of  these  caverns 
like  a  gigantic  snake  crawling  into  its  lair. 

Leaving  the  car  three  miles  from  the  out- 
skirts of  Soissons,  we  made  our  way  through 
dense  undergrowth  up  a  hillside  until  we  came 
quite  unexpectedly  upon  the  yawning  mouth 
of  a  tunnel,  which,  I  surmised,  passed  com- 
pletely    under    the     backbone    of    the     ridge. 


30  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

Groping  our  way  for  perhaps  an  eighth  of  a 
mile  through  inky  blackness,  we  suddenly 
emerged,  amid  a  blinding  glare  of  sunlight, 
into  just  such  another  observing  station  as  we 
had  visited  that  morning  farther  up  the  Aisne. 
This  ohservatoire,  being  in  the  mouth  of  the 
tunnel,  could  not  be  seen  from  above,  while  a 
screen  of  branches  and  foliage  concealed  it 
from  the  German  observers  across  the  river. 
The  officer  in  command  at  this  point  was  anx- 
ious to  give  us  a  demonstration  of  the  accu- 
racy with  which  his  gunners  could  land  on  the 
German  solar  plexus,  but  when  he  learned  that 
we  were  going  into  the  town  he  changed  his 
mind. 

"They've  been  quiet  all  day,"  he  explained, 
"and  if  you  are  going  across  the  river  it's  just 
as  well  not  to  stir  them  up.  You'll  probably 
get  a  little  excitement  in  any  event,  for  the 
Boches  usually  shell  the  town  for  an  hour  or  so 
at  sunset  before  knocking  off  for  supper.  We 
call  it  'The  Evening  Prayer.'" 

Slipping  through  an  opening  in  the  screen 
of  foliage  which  masked  the  ohservatoire^  we 
found  ourselves  at  the  beginning  of  a  boyaUy  or 
communication   trench,   which    led    diagonally 


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IN  THE   FIELD  31 

down  the  face  of  the  hillside  to  the  river. 
Down  this  we  w^ent,  sometimes  on  hands  and 
knees  and  always  stooping,  for  as  long  as  we 
were  on  the  side  of  the  hill  we  were  within  sight 
of  the  German  positions,  and  to  have  shown 
our  heads  above  the  trench  w^ould  have  at- 
tracted the  bullets  of  the  German  sharpshoot- 
ers. And  a  second  is  long  enough  for  a  bullet 
to  do  its  business.  Emerging  from  the  boyau 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  we  crossed  the  river  by 
an  ancient  stone  bridge  and  for  a  mile  or  more 
followed  a  cobble-paved  highroad  which  ran 
between  rows  of  workmen's  cottages  which 
had  been  wrecked  by  shell-fire.  Some  had 
shattered  roofs  and  the  plastered  walls  of 
others  were  pockmarked  with  bullets,  for  here 
the  fighting  had  been  desperate  and  bloody. 
But  over  the  garden  walls  strayed  blossom- 
laden  branches  of  cherry,  peach,  and  apple 
trees.  The  air  was  heavy  w^ith  their  fragrance. 
Black-and-white  cattle  grazed  contentedly 
knee-deep  in  lush  green  grass.  Pigeons  cooed 
and  chattered  on  the  housetops.  By  an  open 
window  an  old  woman  with  a  large  white  cat 
in  her  lap  sat  knitting.  As  she  knitted  she 
looked  out   across  the  blossoming  hillsides  to 


32  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

the  sky-line  where  the  invaders  lay  intrenched 
and  waiting.  I  wondered  what  she  was  think- 
ing about.  She  must  have  remembered  quite 
distinctly  when  the  Germans  came  to  Soissons 
for  the  first  time,  five  and  forty  years  before, 
and  how  they  shot  the  townsmen  in  the  public 
square.  A  few  years  ago  the  people  of  Sois- 
sons unveiled  a  monument  to  those  murdered 
citizens.  When  this  war  is  over  they  will  have 
more  names  to  add  to  those  already  carved  on 
its  base. 

It  is  not  a  cheerful  business  strolHng  through 
a  shell-shattered  and  deserted  town.  You 
feel  depressed  and  speak  in  hushed  tones,  as 
though  you  were  in  a  house  that  had  been 
visited  by  death  as,  indeed,  you  are.  In  the 
Place  de  la  Repubhque  we  found  a  score  or  so 
of  infantrymen  on  duty,  these  being  the  only 
soldiers  that  we  saw  in  the  town.  Along  the 
main  thoroughfares  nearly  every  shop  was 
closed  and  its  windows  shuttered.  Some  tobac- 
conists and  two  or  three  cafes  remained  bravely 
open,  but  little  business  was  being  done.  I  do 
not  think  that  I  am  exaggerating  when  I  say 
that  every  fourth  or  fifth  house  we  passed 
showed    evidences    of   the    German    bombard- 


IN  THE   FIELD  33 

ment.  One  shell,  I  remember,  had  exploded 
in  the  show-window  of  a  furniture  store  and 
had  demolished  a  gilt-and-red-plush  parlor 
suite.  The  only  thing  unharmed  was  a  sign 
which  read  "Cheap  and  a  bargain." 

In  the  very  heart  of  Soissons  stands  the  huge 
bulk  of  the  magnificent  twelfth-century  cathe- 
dral, its  massive  tower  rising  skyward  like  a 
finger  pointing  toward  heaven.  There  are 
few  nobler  piles  in  France.  Repeated  tappings 
at  a  door  in  the  churchyard  wall  brought  the 
curcy  a  white-haired,  kindly  faced  giant  of  a 
man.  Under  his  guidance  we  entered  the 
cathedral,  or  rather  what  remains  of  it,  for  its 
famous  Gothic  windows  are  now  but  heaps  of 
shattered  glass,  the  splendid  nave  is  open  to 
the  sky,  half  the  roof  has  been  torn  away,  the 
pulpit  with  its  exquisite  carvings  has  been 
splintered  by  a  shell,  and  the  massive  columns 
have  been  chipped  and  scarred.  Carvings 
which  were  the  pride  of  master  craftsmen  long 
centuries  dead  have  been  damaged  past  repair. 
In  the  floor  of  the  nave  yawns  a  hole  large 
enough  to  hold  a  horse.  Around  the  statues 
which  flank  the  altar,  and  which  are  too  large 
to  move,  have  been  raised  barricades  of  sand- 


34  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

bags.  And  this,  mind  you,  in  the  house  of  Him 
who  was  the  Apostle  of  Peace ! 

While  the  cure  was  pointing  out  to  us  the 
ruined  beauties  of  his  celebrated  windows, 
something  passed  overhead  with  a  wail  like  a 
lost  soul.  A  moment  later  came  an  explosion 
which  made  the  walls  of  the  cathedral  trem- 
ble. "Ah,"  remarked  the  cure  unconcernedly, 
"they've  begun  again.  I  thought  it  must  be 
nearly  time.  They  bombard  the  cathedral 
every  evening  between  five  and  seven." 

As  he  finished  speaking,  another  shell  came 
whining  over  the  housetops  and  burst  with  a 
prodigious  racket  in  the  street  outside. 

"How  far  away  was  that  one  .?"  I  asked  one 
of  the  officers. 

"Only  about  a  hundred  metres,"  was  the 
careless  reply. 

As  unmoved  as  though  at  a  church  supper, 
the  cure  placidly  continued  his  recital  of  the 
cathedral's  departed  glories,  reefing  oflT  the 
names  of  the  saints  and  martyrs  who  He  buried 
beneath  the  floor  of  its  nave,  his  recital  being 
punctuated  at  thirty-second  intervals  by  ex- 
plosions, each  a  little  louder  than  the  one  pre- 
ceding.    Finally  a  shell  came  so  low  that  I 


IN  THE   FIELD  35 

thought  that  it  was  going  through  the  roof. 
It  came  so  near,  in  fact,  that  I  suggested  that 
it  was  getting  on  toward  dinner  time  and  that 
we  really  ought  to  be  on  our  way.  But  the 
cure  was  not  to  be  hurried.  He  had  had  no 
visitors  for  nearly  a  year  and  he  was  deter- 
mined to  make  the  most  of  us.  He  insisted  on 
showing  us  that  cathedral  from  sacristy  to 
belfry,  and  if  he  thought  that  we  were  missing 
anything  he  carefully  explained  it  all  over 
again. 

"Why  do  you  stay  on  here,  father  ?"  I  asked 
him.  "A  shell  is  Ukely  to  drop  in  on  you  at 
any  moment." 

"That  is  as  God  wills,  monsieur,"  was  the 
quiet  answer.  "A  captain  does  not  leave  his 
ship  in  a  storm.  I  have  my  people  to  look 
after,  for  they  are  as  helpless  as  children  and 
look  to  me  for  advice.  And  the  wounded  also. 
We  have  turned  the  sacristy,  as  you  saw,  into 
a  dressing-station.  Yes,  there  is  much  to  do. 
If  a  shell  comes  it  will  find  me  at  my  post  of 
duty  doing  what  I  may  to  serve  God  and 
France." 

So  we  went  away  and  left  him  standing 
there   alone   in    the   doorway   of  his   shattered 


36  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

cathedral,  a  picturesque  and  gallant  figure, 
with  his  white  hair  coming  down  upon  his 
shoulders  and  his  tall  figure  wrapped  in  the 
black  soutane.  To  such  men  as  these  the  peo- 
ple of  France  owe  a  debt  that  they  can  never 
repay.  Though  they  wear  cassocks  instead  of 
cuirasses,  though  they  carry  Bibles  instead  of 
bayonets,  they  are  none  the  less  real  soldiers 
— soldiers  of  the  Lord. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  task  of 
the  artillery  is  far  easier  in  hilly  or  mountain- 
ous country,  such  as  is  found  along  the  Aisne 
and  in  the  Vosges  and  Alsace,  where  the  move- 
ments of  the  enemy  can  be  observed  with 
comparative  facihty  and  where  both  observ- 
ers and  gunners  can  usually  find  a  certain  de- 
gree of  shelter,  than  in  Artois  and  Flanders, 
where  the  country  is  as  flat  as  the  top  of  a 
table,  with  nothing  even  remotely  resembling 
a  hill  on  which  the  observers  can  be  stationed 
or  behind  which  can  be  concealed  the  guns. 
In  the  flat  country  the  guns,  which  in  all  cases 
are  carefully  masked  with  branches  from  de- 
tection by  hostile  aircraft,  take  position  at 
distances  varying  from  two  thousand  to  five 
thousand   yards    from   the   enemy's   trenches. 


IN  THE   FIELD  37 

Immediately  in  the  rear  of  each  gun  is  a  sub- 
terranean shelter,  in  which  the  gunners  can 
take  refuge  in  case  a  German  battery  locates 
them  and  attempts  to  shell  them  out.  An 
artillery  subaltern,  known  in  the  British  ser- 
vice as  the  "fonvard  observing  officer,"  goes 
up  to  the  infantry  trenches  and  chooses  a 
position,  sometimes  in  a  tree,  sometimes  in  a 
shattered  church-tower,  sometimes  in  a  sort 
of  dug-out,  from  which  he  can  obtain  an  un- 
obstructed view  of  his  battery's  zone  of  fire. 
He  is  to  his  battery  very  much  what  a  coach  is 
to  a  football  team,  giving  his  men  directions 
by  telephone  instead  of  through  a  megaphone, 
but,  unlike  the  coach,  he  is  stationed  not  on 
the  side-line  but  on  the  firing-line.  Laid  on 
the  surface  of  the  ground,  connecting  him 
with  the  battery,  is  the  field-telephone.  As 
wires  are  easily  cut  by  bursting  shells,  they  are 
now  being  laid  in  a  sort  of  ladder  formation 
so  that  a  dozen  wires  may  be  cut  without 
interrupting  communication.  When  the  noise 
is  so  deafening  that  the  voice  of  the  observing 
officer  cannot  be  heard  on  the  field-telephone 
communication  is  carried  on  in  the  Morse  code 
by    means   of  a   giant    buzzer.     Amid    all   the 


38  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

uproar  of  battle  the  observing  officer  has  to 
keep  careful  track,  through  his  glasses,  of 
every  shell  his  battery  fires,  and  to  inform  his 
battery  commander  by  telephone  of  the  effect 
of  his  fire.  He  can  make  no  mistakes,  for  on 
those  portions  of  the  battle-line  where  the 
trenches  are  frequently  less  than  a  hundred 
yards  apart  the  slightest  miscalculation  in 
giving  the  range  might  land  the  shells  among 
his  own  men.  The  critical  moment  for  the 
observing  officer  is,  however,  when  the  enemy 
makes  a  sudden  rush  and  swarms  of  helmeted, 
gray-clad  figures,  climbing  out  of  their  trenches, 
come  rolling  forward  in  a  steel-tipped  wave, 
tripping  in  the  barbed  wire  and  falling  in  ones 
and  twos  and  dozens.  Instantly  the  French 
trenches  crackle  and  roar  into  the  full  blast 
of  magazine  fire.  The  rattle  of  the  machine- 
guns  sounds  like  a  boy  drawing  a  stick  along 
the  palings  of  a  picket  fence.  The  air  quivers 
to  the  incessant  crash  of  bursting  shrapnel. 
"Infantry  attack!"  calls  the  observation  of- 
ficer into  the  telephone  receiver  which  is 
clamped  to  his  head.  "Commence  firing!" 
and  his  battery,  two  or  three  miles  in  the  rear, 
begins    pouring    shrapnel    on    the    advancing 


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IN  THE   FIELD  39 

Germans.  But  still  the  gray  figures  come  on, 
hoarsely  cheering.  "Drop  twenty-five!"  he 
orders.  "Careful  with  your  fuse-setting  .  .  . 
very  close  to  our  trenches."  The  French 
shrapnel  sprays  the  ground  immediately  in 
front  of  the  French  trenches  as  a  street  cleaner 
sprays  the  pavement  with  a  hose.  The  gray 
line  checks,  falters,  sways  uncertainly  before 
the  blast  of  steel.  Men  begin  to  fall  by  doz- 
ens and  scores,  others  turn  and  run  for  their 
lives.  With  a  shrill  cheer  the  French  infantry 
spring  from  their  trenches  in  a  counter-attack. 
"Raise  twenty-five!  .  .  .  raise  fifty!"  tele- 
phones the  observing  officer  as  the  blue  fig- 
ures of  his  countrymen  sweep  forward  in  the 
charge.  And  so  it  goes,  the  guns  backing  up 
the  French  attacks  and  breaking  the  Ger- 
man ones,  shelling  a  house  or  a  haystack  for 
snipers,  putting  a  machine-gun  out  of  busi- 
ness, dropping  death  into  the  enemy's  trenches 
or  sending  its  steel  calling-cards  across  to  a 
German  battery  whose  position  has  been 
discovered  and  reported  by  wireless  by  a 
scouting  French  aeroplane.  And  all  the  time 
the  youngster  out  in  front,  flattened  to  the 
ground,   with   glasses   at   his  eyes   and   a   tele- 


40  **VIVE  LA  FRANCE!'* 

phone  at  his  Hps,  acts  the  part  of  prompter  and 
tells  the  guns  when  to  speak  their  parts. 

In  reading  accounts  of  artillery-fire  it  should 
be  remembered  that  there  are  two  types  of 
shell  in  common  use  to-day — shrapnel  and 
high  explosive — and  that  they  are  used  for 
entirely  different  purposes  and  produce  en- 
tirely different  results.  Shrapnel,  which  is 
intended  only  for  use  against  infantry  in  the 
open,  or  when  lightly  intrenched,  is  a  shell 
with  a  very  thin  steel  body  and  a  small  burst- 
ing charge,  generally  of  low-power  explosive, 
in  the  base.  By  means  of  a  time-fuse  the 
projectile  is  made  to  burst  at  any  given  moment 
after  leaving  the  gun,  the  explosion  of  the 
weak  charge  breaking  the  thin  steel  case  and 
hberating  the  bullets,  which  fly  forward  with 
the  velocity  of  the  shrapnel,  scattering  much 
as  do  the  pellets  from  a  shot-gun.  At  a  range 
of  3500  yards  the  bullets  of  a  British  18-pound 
shrapnel,  375  in  number,  cover  a  space  of  250 
yards  long  and  30  yards  wide — an  area  of  more 
than  one  and  a  half  acres.  Though  terribly  ef- 
fective against  infantry  attacks  or  unprotected 
batteries,  shrapnel  are  wholly  useless  against 
fortified    positions,    strongly    built    houses,    or 


IN  THE  FIELD  41 

deep  and  well-planned  intrenchments.  The 
difference  between  shrapnel  and  high  ex- 
plosive is  the  difference  between  a  shot-gun 
and  an  elephant  rifle.  The  high-explosive 
shell,  which  is  considerably  stronger  than  the 
shrapnel,  contains  no  bullets  but  a  charge  of 
high  explosive— in  the  French  service  melinite, 
in  the  British  usually  lyddite  (which  is  picric 
acid  melted  with  a  little  vaseline),  and  in  the 
German  army  trinitrotoluene.  The  effect  of 
the  high  explosive  is  far  more  concentrated 
than  that  of  shrapnel,  covering  only  one- 
fifteenth  of  the  area  affected  by  the  latter. 
Though  shrapnel  has  practically  no  effect  on 
barbed-wire  entanglements  or  on  concrete, 
and  very  little  on  earthworks,  high-explosive 
shells  of  the  same  caliber  destroy  everything 
in  the  vicinity,  concrete,  wire  entanglements, 
steel  shields,  guns,  and  even  the  trenches  them- 
selves disappearing  like  a  dynamited  stump 
before  the  terrific  blast.  The  men  holding  the 
trenches  are  driven  into  their  dug-outs,  and 
may  be  reached  even  there  by  high-explosive 
shells  fired  from  high-angle  howitzers. 

The   commanding   importance   of  the   high- 
explosive  shell  in  this  war  is  due  to  the  peculiar 


42  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

nature  of  the  conflict.  Instead  of  fighting  in 
the  open  field,  the  struggle  has  developed  into 
what  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  fortress 
warfare  on  the  most  gigantic  scale.  In  this 
warfare  all  strategic  manoeuvres  are  absent, 
because  manoeuvres  are  impossible  on  ground 
where  every  square  yard  is  marked  and  swept 
by  artillery  fire.  The  opposing  armies  are 
not  simply  intrenched.  They  have  protected 
themselves  with  masses  of  concrete  and  steel 
armor,  so  that  the  so-called  trenches  are  in 
reality  concrete  forts,  shielded  and  casemated 
with  armor-plate,  flanked  with  rapid-firers 
and  mortars,  Hnked  to  one  another  by  mar- 
vellously concealed  communicating  trenches 
which  are  protected  in  turn  by  the  fire  of 
heavy  batteries,  guarded  by  the  most  ingenious 
entanglements,  pitfalls,  and  other  obstructions 
that  the  mind  of  man  has  been  able  to  devise, 
and  defended  by  machine-guns,  in  the  enor- 
mous proportion  of  one  to  every  fifty  men, 
mounted  behind  steel  plates  and  capable  of 
firing  six  hundred  shots  a  minute.  In  these 
subterranean  works  dwell  the  infantry,  abun- 
dantly provided  with  hand-grenades  and  ap- 
pHances  for  throwing  bombs  and  flaming  oil. 


IN  THE  FIELD  43 

their  rifles  trained,  day  and  night,  on  the  space 
over  which  an  enemy  must  advance.  That 
is  the  sort  of  wall  which  one  side  or  the  other 
will  have  to  break  through  in  order  to  win  in 
this  war.  The  only  way  to  take  such  a  position 
is  by  frontal  attack,  and  the  only  way  to  make 
a  frontal  attack  possible  is  by  paving  the  way 
with  such  a  torrent  of  high  explosive  that  both 
entanglements  and  earthworks  are  literally 
torn  to  pieces  and  the  infantry  defending  them 
demoralized  or  annihilated.  No  one  before  the 
war  could  have  imagined  the  vast  quantity 
of  shells  required  for  such  an  operation.  In 
order  to  prepare  the  way  for  an  infantry  at- 
tack on  a  German  position  near  Arras,  the 
French  fired  two  hundred  thousand  rounds 
of  high  explosive  in  a  single  day — and  the 
scouts  came  back  to  report  that  not  a  barbed- 
wire  entanglement,  a  trench,  or  a  living  human 
being  remained.  During  the  same  battle  the 
British,  owing  to  a  shortage  of  high-explosive 
ammunition,  were  able  to  precede  their  attack 
by  only  forty  minutes  of  shell-fire.  This  was 
wholly  insufficient  to  clear  away  the  entangle- 
ments and  other  obstructions,  and,  as  a  result, 
the   men   were   literally   mowed   down   by   the 


44  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

German  machine-guns.  Even  when  the  storm- 
ing-parties  succeed  in  reaching  the  first  line  of 
the  enemy's  trenches  and  bayonet  or  drive  out 
the  defenders,  the  opposing  artillery,  with  a 
literal  wall  of  fire,  effectively  prevents  any  re- 
inforcements from  advancing  to  their  support. 
Shattered  and  exhausted  though  they  are, 
the  attackers  must  instantly  set  to  work  to 
fortify  and  consoHdate  the  captured  trenches, 
being  subjected,  meanwhile,  to  a  much  more 
accurate  bombardment,  as  the  enemy  knows, 
of  course,  the  exact  range  of  his  former  positions 
and  is  able  to  drop  his  shells  into  them  with 
unerring  accuracy.  It  is  obvious  that  such 
offensive  movements  cannot  be  multiplied  or 
prolonged  indefinitely,  both  on  account  of  the 
severe  mental  and  physical  strain  on  the  men 
and  the  appalling  losses  which  they  involve. 
Neither  can  such  offensives  be  im'provised.  A 
commanding  officer  cannot  smash  home  a 
frontal  attack  on  an  enemy's  position  at  any 
moment  that  he  deems  auspicious  any  more 
than  a  surgeon  can  perform  a  major  operation 
without  first  preparing  his  patient  physically. 
Before  launching  an  attack  the  ground  must  be 
minutely  studied;   the  position  to  be  attacked 


IN  THE   FIELD  45 

must  be  reconnoitred  and  photographed  by 
aviators;  advanced  trenches  must  be  dug; 
reserve  troops  must  be  moved  forward  and 
batteries  brought  into  position  without  arous- 
ing the  suspicions  of  the  enemy;  and,  most 
important  of  all,  enormous  quantities  of  pro- 
jectiles and  other  material  must  be  gathered 
in  one  place  designated  by  the  officer  in  charge 
of  the  operations.  The  greatest  problem  pre- 
sented by  an  offensive  movement  is  that  of 
delivering  to  the  artillery  the  vast  supplies  of 
shells  necessary  to  pave  the  way  for  a  success- 
ful attack.  To  give  some  idea  of  what  this 
means,  I  might  mention  that  the  Germans,  dur- 
ing the  crossing  of  the  San,  fired  seven  hundred 
thousand  shells  in  four  hours. 

There  are  no  words  between  the  covers  of  the 
dictionary  w^hich  can  convey  any  adequate  idea 
of  what  one  of  these  great  artillery  actions  is 
like.  One  has  to  see — and  hear — it.  Buildings 
of  brick  and  stone  collapse  as  though  they  were 
built  of  cards.  Whole  towns  are  razed  to  the 
ground  as  a  city  of  tents  would  be  levelled  by 
a  cyclone.  Trees  are  snapped  off  like  carrots. 
Gaping  holes  as  large  as  cottage  cellars  sud- 
denly  appear  in   the   fields   and   in   the  stone- 


46  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

paved  roads.  Geysers  of  smoke  and  earth 
shoot  high  into  the  air.  The  fields  are  strewn 
with  the  shocking  remains  of  what  had  once 
been  men:  bodies  without  heads  or  arms 
or  legs;  legs  and  arms  and  heads  without 
bodies.  Dead  horses,  broken  wagons,  bent  and 
shattered  equipment  are  everywhere.  The 
noise  is  beyond  all  description — ^yes,  beyond 
all  conception.  It  is  like  a  close-by  clap  of 
thunder  which,  instead  of  lasting  for  a  frac- 
tion of  a  second,  lasts  for  hours.  There  is  no 
break,  no  pause  in  the  hell  of  sound,  not  even 
a  momentary  diminution.  The  ground  heaves 
and  shudders  beneath  your  feet.  You  find 
it  difficult  to  breathe.  Your  head  throbs 
until  you  think  that  it  is  about  to  burst.  Your 
eyeballs  ache  and  burn.  Giant  fingers  seem 
to  be  steadily  pressing  your  ear-drums  inward. 
The  very  atmosphere  palpitates  to  the  tre- 
mendous detonations.  The  howl  of  the  shell- 
storm  passing  overhead  gives  you  the  feeling 
that  the  skies  are  falhng.  Compared  with  it, 
the  roar  of  the  cannon  at  Gettysburg  must 
have  sounded  like  the  popping  of  fire-crackers. 
Inconceivably  awe-inspiring  and  terrifying 
as  is  a  modern  artillery  action,  one  eventually 


IN  THE   FIELD  47 

becomes  accustomed  to  it,  but  I  have  yet  to 
meet  the  person  who  would  say  with  perfect 
truthfulness  that  he  was  indifferent  to  the  fire 
of  the  great  German  siege-cannon.  I  have 
three  times  been  under  the  fire  of  the  German 
siege-guns — during  the  bombardments  of  Ant- 
werp, of  Soissons,  and  of  Dunkirk — and  I 
hope  with  all  my  heart  that  I  shall  never  have 
the  experience  again.  Let  me  put  it  to  you, 
my  friends.  How  would  you  feel  if  you  were 
sleeping  quite  peacefully  in — let  us  say — the 
Waldorf-Astoria,  and  along  about  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning  something  dropped  from  the 
clouds,  and  in  the  pavement  of  Fifth  Avenue 
blew  a  hole  large  enough  to  bury  a  horse  in  } 
And  what  would  be  your  sensations  if,  still 
bewildered  by  the  suddenness  of  your  awaken- 
ing, you  ran  to  the  window  to  see  what  had 
happened,  and  something  that  sounded  like 
an  express-train  came  hurtling  through  the 
air  from  somewhere  over  in  New  Jersey,  and 
with  the  crash  of  an  exploding  powder-mill 
transformed  Altman's  store  into  a  heap  of 
pulverized  stone  and  concrete  }  Well,  that  is 
precisely  what  happened  to  me  one  beautiful 
spring  morning  in  Dunkirk. 


48  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

To  be  quite  frank,  I  didn't  like  Dunkirk  from 
the  first.  Its  empty  streets,  the  shuttered  win- 
dows of  its  shops,  and  the  inky  blackness  into 
which  the  city  was  plunged  at  night  from  fear 
of  aeroplanes,  combined  to  give  me  a  feeling 
of  uneasiness  and  depression.  The  place  was 
about  as  cheerful  as  a  country  cemetery  on  a 
rainy  evening.  From  the  time  I  set  foot  in  it 
I  had  the  feeling  that  something  was  going  to 
happen.  I  found  that  a  room  had  been  re- 
served for  me  on  the  upper  floor  of  the  local 
hostelry,  known  as  the  Hotel  des  Arcades — 
presumably  because  there  are  none.  I  did  not 
particularly  relish  the  idea  of  sleeping  on  the 
upper  floor,  with  nothing  save  the  roof  to  ward 
off  a  bomb  from  a  marauding  aeroplane,  for, 
ever  since  I  was  under  the  fire  of  Zeppelins  in 
Antwerp,  I  have  made  it  a  point  to  put  as 
many  floors  as  possible  between  me  and  the  sky. 

It  must  have  been  about  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning  when  I  was  awakened  by  a  splitting 
crash  which  made  my  bedroom  windows  rattle. 
A  moment  later  came  another  and  then  an- 
other, each  louder  and  therefore  nearer  than  the 
one  preceding.  All  down  the  corridor  doors  be- 
gan to  open,  and  I  heard  voices  excitedly  in- 


IN  THE  FIELD  49 

quiring  what  was  happening.  I  didn't  have  to 
inquire.  I  knew  from  previous  experience.  A 
German  Tmihe  was  raining  death  upon  the  city. 
Throwing  open  my  shutters,  I  could  see  the 
machine  quite  plainly,  its  armor-plated  body 
gleaming  in  the  morning  sun  like  polished 
silver  as  it  swept  in  ever-widening  circles  across 
the  sky.  Somewhere  to  the  east  a  pompom 
began  its  infernal  triphammer-like  clatter.  An 
armored  car,  evidently  British  from  the  "R. 
N."  painted  on  its  turret,  tore  into  the  square 
in  front  of  the  hotel,  the  lean  barrel  of  its 
quick-firing  gun  sweeping  the  sky,  and  began 
to  send  shell  after  shell  at  the  aerial  intruder. 
From  down  near  the  water-front  came  the 
raucous  wail  of  a  steam-siren  warning  the 
people  to  get  under  cover.  A  church-bell  be- 
gan to  clang  hastily,  insistently,  imperatively. 
It  seemed  to  say:  "To  your  cellars  !  To  your 
cellars!  Hurry!  .  .  .  Hurry!  .  .  .  Hurry!" 
From  the  belfry  of  the  church  of  St.  Eloi  a 
flag  with  blue  and  white  stripes  was  run  up 
as  a  warning  to  the  townspeople  that  death 
was  abroad.  Suddenly,  above  the  tumult  of 
the  bells  and  horns  and  hurrying  footsteps, 
came     a     new     and     inconceivably     terrifying 


so  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

sound:  a  low,  deep-toned  roar  rapidly  rising 
into  a  thunderous  crescendo  like  an  express- 
train  approaching  from  far  down  the  subway. 
As  it  passed  above  our  heads  it  sounded  as 
though  a  giant  in  the  sky  were  tearing  mighty 
strips  of  linen.  Then  an  explosion  which  was 
brother  to  an  earthquake.  The  housetops 
seemed  to  rock  and  sway.  The  hotel  shook  to 
its  foundations.  The  pictures  on  the  wall 
threatened  to  come  down.  The  glass  in  the 
windows  rattled  until  I  thought  that  it  would 
break.  From  beyond  the  housetops  in  the 
direction  of  the  receiving  hospital  and  the 
railway  station  a  mushroom-shaped  cloud  of 
green-brown  smoke  shot  suddenly  high  into 
the  air.  Out  in  the  corridor  a  woman  screamed 
hysterically:  "My  God!  My  God!  They've 
begun  again  with  the  big  cannon!"  I  heard 
the  clatter  of  footsteps  on  the  stairs  as  the 
guests  rushed  for  the  cellar.  I  began  to  dress. 
No  fireman  responding  to  a  third  alarm  ever 
dressed  quicker.  Just  as  I  was  struggling  with 
my  boots  there  came  another  whistling  roar 
and  another  terrific  detonation.  High  in  the 
air  above  the  quivering  city  still  circled  the 
German  aeroplane,  informing  by  wireless  the 


IN  THE   FIELD  51 

German  gunners,  more  than  a  score  of  miles 
away  across  the  Belgian  border,  where  their 
shells  were  hitting.  Think  of  it !  Think  of 
bombarding  a  city  at  a  range  of  twenty-three 
miles  and  every  shot  a  hit!  That  is  the  marvel 
of  this  modern  warfare.  Imagine  the  Grand 
Central  Station  in  New  York,  the  Presby- 
terian Hospital,  the  Metropolitan  Life  Build- 
ing, and  the  City  Hall  being  blown  to  smith- 
ereens by  shells  fired  from  Rahway,  N.  J.  And 
it  was  not  a  42-centimetre  siege-gun  either, 
but  a  15-inch  naval  gun  which  the  Germans 
had  brought  from  Kiel  and  mounted  behind 
their  lines  in  Flanders.  Though  French  and 
British  aviators  made  repeated  flights  over 
the  German  lines  for  the  purpose  of  locating 
the  gun  and  putting  it  out  of  business,  their 
efforts  met  with  no  success,  as  the  ingenious 
Teutons,  it  seems,  had  dug  a  sort  of  tunnel 
into  which  the  gun  was  run  back  after  each 
shot  and  there  it  stayed,  in  perfect  security, 
until  it  was  fired  again.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
the  Germans  are  so  desperately  anxious  to 
reach  Calais,  with  the  fort-crowned  cliffs  of 
Dover  rising  across  the  channel  less  than 
twenty  miles  away  ? 


52  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

Descending  to  the  cellars  of  the  hotel,  I 
found  that  there  was  standing-room  only. 
Guests,  porters,  cooks,  waiters,  chambermaids, 
English  Red  Cross  nurses,  and  a  French  colonel 
wearing  the  Legion  of  Honor  were  shivering 
in  the  dampness  amid  the  cobwebs  and  the 
wine-bottles.  Every  time  a  shell  exploded 
the  wine-bottles  in  their  bins  shook  and 
quivered  as  though  they,  too,  were  alive  and 
frightened.  I  lay  no  claim  to  bravery,  but  in 
other  bombarded  cities  I  have  seen  what  hap- 
pens to  the  people  in  the  cellar  when  a  shell 
strikes  that  particular  building,  and  I  had  no 
desire  to  end  my  career  like  a  rat  in  a  trap. 
Should  you  ever,  by  any  chance,  find  yourself 
in  a  city  which  is  being  bombarded,  take  my 
advice,  I  beg  of  you,  and  go  out  into  the  mid- 
dle of  the  nearest  open  square  and  stay  there 
until  the  bombardment  is  over.  I  believe  that 
far  more  people  are  killed  during  bombard- 
ment by  falling  masonry  and  timbers  than  by 
the  shells  themselves.  As  I  went  upstairs  I 
heard  a  Frenchwoman  angrily  demanding  of  the 
chambermaid  why  she  had  not  brought  her 
hot  water.  "But,  madame,"  pleaded  the  ter- 
rified   girl,    "the    city    is    being    bombarded.'* 


IN  THE  FIELD  53 

"Is  that  any  reason  why  I  should  not  wash  ?'* 
cried  the  irate  lady.  "Bring  my  hot  water 
instantly." 

At  eight  o'clock  the  general  commanding 
the  garrison  hurried  in.  He  had  invited  me 
to  lunch  with  him.  "I  am  desolated  that  I 
cannot  have  the  pleasure  of  your  company  at 
dejeuner^  Monsieur  Powell,"  said  he,  "but  it 
is  not  wise  for  you  to  remain  in  the  city.  I  am 
responsible  to  the  Government  for  your  safety, 
and  it  would  make  things  easier  for  me  if  you 
would  go.  I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  sending 
for  your  car."  You  can  call  it  cowardice  or 
timidity  or  anything  you  please,  but  I  am  not 
at  all  ashamed  to  admit  that  I  was  never  so 
glad  to  have  an  invitation  cancelled.  I  have 
had  a  somewhat  extensive  acquaintance  with 
bombardments,  and  I  have  always  found  that 
those  who  speak  lightly  of  them  are  those  who 
have  never  seen  one. 

In  order  to  get  out  of  range  of  the  German 
shells  my  driver,  acting  under  the  orders  of 
the  commandant,  turned  the  bonnet  of  the 
car  toward  Bergues,  five  miles  to  the  south- 
ward. But  we  found  that  Bergues  had  not 
been    overlooked     by    the    German    gunners, 


54  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

having,  indeed,  suffered  more  severely  than 
Dunkirk.  When  we  arrived  the  bombard- 
ment was  just  over  and  the  dust  was  still 
rising  from  the  shattered  houses.  Twelve 
38-centimetre  shells  had  landed  in  the  very- 
heart  of  the  little  town,  sending  a  score  or 
more  of  its  inhabitants,  men,  women,  and 
children,  to  the  hospital  and  a  like  number  to 
the  cemetery. 

A  few  hours  before  Bergues  had  been  as 
quaint  and  peaceful  and  contented  a  town  of 
five  thousand  people  as  you  could  have  found 
in  France.  Because  of  its  quaint  and  simple 
charm  touring  motorists  used  to  go  out  of 
their  way  to  see  it.  It  is  fortified  in  theory 
but  not  in  fact,  for  its  moss-grown  ramparts, 
which  date  from  the  Crusades,  have  about  as 
much  military  significance  as  the  Battery  in 
New  York.  But  the  guide-books  describe  it 
as  a  fortified  town,  and  that  was  all  the  excuse 
the  Germans  needed  to  turn  loose  upon  it 
sudden  death.  To-day  that  httle  town  is  an 
empty,  broken  shell,  its  streets  piled  high  with 
the  brick  and  plaster  of  its  ruined  homes. 
One  has  to  see  the  ruin  produced  by  a  38-centi- 
metre shell  to  believe  it.     If  one  hits  a  build- 


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IN  THE   FIELD  55 

ing  that  building  simply  ceases  to  exist.  It 
crumbles,  disintegrates,  disappears.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  its  roof  is  ripped  off  or  that 
one  of  its  walls  is  blown  away.  I  mean  to  say 
that  the  whole  building  crashes  to  the  ground 
as  though  flattened  by  the  hand  of  God.  The 
Germans  sent  only  tw^elve  of  their  shells  into 
Bergues,  but  the  central  part  of  the  town  looked 
Hke  Market  Street  in  San  Francisco  after  the 
earthquake.  One  of  the  shells  struck  a  hospital 
and  exploded  in  a  ward  filled  with  wounded 
soldiers.  They  are  not  wounded  any  longer. 
Another  shell  completely  demolished  a  three- 
story  brick  house.  In  the  cellar  of  that  house 
a  man,  his  wife,  and  their  three  children  had 
taken  refuge.  There  was  no  need  to  dig  graves 
for  them  in  the  local  cemetery.  Through- 
out the  bombardment  a  Tauhe  hung  over  the 
doomed  town  to  observe  the  effect  of  the  shots, 
and  to  direct  by  wireless  the  distant  gunners. 
I  wonder  what  the  German  observer,  peering 
down  through  his  glasses  upon  the  wrecked 
hospital  and  the  shell-torn  houses  and  the 
mangled  bodies  of  the  women  and  children, 
thought  about  it  all.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  know,  wouldn't  it  ? 


II 

ON  THE  BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE 

^LONG  a  road  in  the  outskirts  of  that 
/-\  French  town  which  is  the  British 
headquarters  a  youth  was  running. 
He  was  of  considerably  less  than  medium 
height,  and  fair-haired  and  very  slender.  One 
would  have  described  him  as  a  nice-looking 
boy.  He  wore  a  jersey  and  white  running- 
shorts  which  left  his  knees  bare,  and  he  was 
bareheaded.  Shoulders  back  and  chest  well 
out,  he  jogged  along  at  the  steady  dog-trot 
adopted  by  athletes  and  prize-fighters  who  are 
in  training.  Now,  in  ordinary  times  there  is 
not  anything  particularly  remarkable  in  seeing 
a  scantily  clad  youth  dog-trotting  along  a 
country  road.  You  assume  that  he  is  training 
for  a  cross-country  event,  or  for  a  seat  in  a 
'varsity  shell,  or  for  the  feather-weight  cham- 
pionship, and  you  let  it  go  at  that.     But  these 

S6 


ON  THE  BRITISH  BATTLE-LINE     57 

are  not  ordinary  times  in  France,  and  ordinary- 
young  men  in  running-shorts  are  not  per- 
mitted to  trot  along  the  roads  as  they  list  in 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  British  Headquarters. 
Even  if  you  travel,  as  I  did,  in  a  large  gray  car, 
with  an  officer  of  the  French  General  Staff 
for  companion,  you  are  halted  every  few 
minutes  by  a  sentry  who  turns  the  business 
end  of  a  rifle  in  your  direction  and  demands 
to  see  your  papers.  But  no  one  challenged 
the  young  man  in  the  running-shorts  or  asked 
to  see  his  papers.  Instead,  whenever  a  soldier 
caught  sight  of  him  that  soldier  clicked  his 
heels  together  and  stood  rigidly  at  attention. 
After  you  had  observed  the  curious  eflPect 
which  the  appearance  of  this  young  man  pro- 
duced on  the  military  of  all  ranks  it  suddenly 
struck  you  that  his  face  was  strangely  familiar. 
Then  you  all  at  once  remembered  that  you 
had  seen  it  hundreds  of  times  in  the  magazines 
and  the  illustrated  papers.  Under  it  was  the 
caption,  "His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince  of 
Wales,"  That  young  man  will  some  day,  if 
he  lives,  sit  in  an  ancient  chair  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
will  place  a  crown  upon  his  head,  and  his  pic- 


58  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

ture  will  appear  on  coins  and  postage-stamps 
in  use  over  half  the  globe. 

Now,  the  future  King  of  England — Ed- 
ward VIII  they  will  doubtless  call  him — is 
not  getting  up  at  daybreak  and  reeling  off 
half  a  dozen  miles  or  so  because  he  particularly 
enjoys  it.  He  is  doing  it  with  an  end  in  view. 
He  is  doing  it  for  precisely  the  same  reason  that 
the  prize-fighter  does  it — he  is  training  for  a 
battle.  To  me  there  was  something  wonder- 
fully suggestive  and  characteristic  in  the  sight 
of  that  young  man  plugging  doggedly  along 
the  country  road.  He  seemed  to  epitomize 
the  spirit  which  I  found  to  exist  along  the 
whole  length  of  the  British  battle-line.  Every 
British  soldier  in  France  has  come  to  appreciate 
that  he  is  engaged  in  a  struggle  without  paral- 
lel in  history — a  struggle  in  which  he  is  con- 
fronted by  formidable,  ferocious,  resourceful, 
and  utterly  unscrupulous  opponents,  and  from 
which  he  is  by  no  means  certain  to  emerge  a 
victor — and  he  is,  therefore,  methodically  and 
systematically  preparing  to  win  that  struggle 
just  as  a  pugiUst  prepares  himself  for  a  battle 
in  a  prize-ring. 

The  British  soldier  has  at  last  come  to  a 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE     59 

realization  of  the  terrible  gravity  of  the  situa- 
tion which  faces  him.  You  don't  hear  him 
singing  "Tipperary"  any  more  or  boasting 
about  what  he  is  going  to  do  when  he  gets  to 
Berlin.  He  has  come  to  have  a  most  profound 
respect  for  the  fighting  qualities  of  the  men 
in  the  spiked  helmets.  He  knows  that  he,  an 
amateur  boxer  as  it  were,  is  up  against  the 
world's  heavy-weight  professional  champion, 
and  he  perfectly  appreciates  that  he  has,  to 
use  his  own  expression,  "a  hell  of  a  job"  in 
front  of  him.  He  has  already  found  out,  to 
his  cost  and  to  his  very  great  disgust,  that  his 
opponent  has  no  intention  of  being  hampered 
by  the  rules  laid  down  by  the  late  Marquis 
of  Queensberry,  having  missed  no  opportunity 
to  gouge  or  kick  or  hit  below  the  belt.  But  the 
British  soldier  has  now  become  familiar  with 
his  opponent's  tactics,  and  one  of  these  days, 
when  he  gets  quite  ready,  he  is  going  to  give 
that  opponent  the  surprise  of  his  life  by  land- 
ing on  him  with  both  feet,  spikes  on  his  shoes, 
and  brass  knuckles  on  his  fingers.  Meanwhile, 
like  the  young  Prince  in  the  running-shorts, 
he  has  buckled  down  with  grim  determination 
to  the  task  of  getting  himself  into  condition. 


6o  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

I  suppose  that  if  I  were  really  politic  and 
far-sighted  I  would  cuddle  up  to  the  War 
Office  and  make  myself  soHd  with  the  General 
StafF  by  confidently  asserting  that  the  British 
Army  is  the  most  efficient  kilHng-machine  in 
existence,  and  that  its  complete  and  early 
triumph  is  as  certain  as  that  the  sparks  fly 
upward;  neither  of  which  assertions  would  be 
true.  It  should  be  kept  in  mind,  however, 
that  the  British  did  not  begin  the  building  of 
their  war-machine  until  after  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities,  while  the  German  organization  is 
the  result  of  upward  of  half  a  century  of  un- 
ceasing thought,  experiment,  and  endeavor. 
But  what  the  British  have  accomplished  since 
the  war  began  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  military 
history.  Lord  Kitchener  came  to  a  War  Office 
which  had  long  been  in  the  hands  of  lawyers 
and  politicians.  Not  only  was  he  expected 
to  remodel  an  institution  which  had  become 
a  national  joke,  but  at  the  same  time  to  raise 
a  huge  volunteer  army.  In  order  to  raise  this 
army  he  had  to  have  recourse  to  American 
business  methods.  He  employed  a  clever 
advertising  speciaHst  to  cover  the  walls  and 
newspapers  of  the  United   Kingdom  with  all 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    6i 

manner  of  striking  advertisements,  some  plead- 
ing, some  bullying,  some  caustic  in  tone,  by 
which  he  has  proved  that,  given  patriotic  im- 
pulse, advertising  for  people  to  go  to  war  is 
just  like  advertising  for  people  to  buy  auto- 
mobiles or  shaving-soap  or  smoking-tobacco. 
It  was  not  soothing  to  British  pride — but  it 
got  the  m.en.  Late  in  the  spring  of  191 5,  after 
half  a  year  or  more  of  training,  during  which 
they  were  worked  as  a  negro  teamster  works 
a  mule,  those  men  w^ere  marched  aboard  trans- 
ports and  sent  across  the  Channel.  So  ad- 
mirably executed  were  the  plans  of  the  War 
Office  and  so  complete  the  precautions  taken 
by  the  Admiralty,  that  this  great  force  was 
landed  on  the  Continent  without  the  loss  of  a 
single  life  from  German  mines  or  submarines. 
That,  in  itself,  is  one  of  the  greatest  accom- 
plishments of  the  war.  England  now  (Decem- 
ber, 191 5)  has  in  France  an  army  of  approxi- 
mately a  million  men.  But  it  is  a  new  army. 
The  bulk  of  it  is  without  experience  and  with- 
out experienced  regiments  to  stiffen  it  and  give 
it  confidence,  for  the  army  of  British  regulars 
which  landed  in  France  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  has  ceased  to  exist.     The  old  regimental 


62  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

names  remain,  but  the  officers  and  men  who 
composed  those  regiments  are,  to-day,  in  the 
hospitals  or  the  cemeteries.  The  losses  suffered 
by  the  British  Army  in  Flanders  are  appalling. 
The  West  Kent  Regiment,  for  example,  has 
been  three  times  wiped  out  and  three  times 
reconstituted.  Of  the  Black  Watch,  the  Rifle 
Brigade,  the  Infantry  of  the  Household,  scarcely 
a  vestige  of  the  original  establishments  remains. 
Hardly  less  terrible  are  the  losses  which  have 
been  suffered  by  the  Canadian  Contingent. 
The  Princess  Patricia's  Canadian  Light  In- 
fantry landed  in  France  1400  strong.  To-day 
only  140  remain.  The  present  colonel  was  a 
private  in  the  ranks  when  the  regiment  sailed 
from  Quebec. 

The  machine  that  the  British  have  knocked 
together,  though  still  a  trifle  wabbly  and  some- 
what creaky  in  its  joints,  is,  I  am  convinced, 
eventually  going  to  do  the  business.  But  you 
cannot  appreciate  what  it  is  like  or  what  it  is 
accomplishing  by  reading  about  it;  you  have 
to  see  it  for  yourself  as  I  did.  That  corner  of 
France  lying  between  the  fifty  miles  of  British 
front  and  the  sea  is,  to-day,  I  suppose,  the 
busiest  region  in  the  world.     It  reminded  me 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    6i 

of  the  Canal  Zone  during  the  rush  period  of 
the  Canal's  construction.  It  is  as  busy  as  the 
lot  where  the  Greatest  Show  on  Earth  is  getting 
ready  for  the  afternoon  performance.  Down 
the  roads,  far  as  the  eye  can  see,  stretch  long 
lines  of  London  motor-buses,  sombre  war- 
coats  of  elephant  gray  replacing  the  staring 
advertisements  of  teas,  tobaccos,  whiskeys, 
and  theatrical  attractions,  crowded  no  longer 
with  pale-faced  clerks  hurrying  toward  the 
city,  but  with  sun-tanned  men  in  khaki  hurry- 
ing toward  the  trenches.  Interminable  pro- 
cessions of  motor-lorries  go  lumbering  past, 
piled  high  with  the  supplies  required  to  feed 
and  clothe  the  army,  practically  all  of  which 
are  moved  from  the  coast  to  the  front  by  road, 
the  railways  being  reserved  for  the  transport 
of  men  and  ammunition;  and  the  ambulances, 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  them,  hurrying  their 
blood-soaked  cargoes  to  the  hospitds  so  that 
they  may  go  back  to  the  front  for  more.  So 
crowded  are  the  highways  behind  the  British 
front  that  at  the  cross-roads  in  the  country 
and  at  the  street  crossings  in  the  towns  are 
posted  military  policemen  with  little  scarlet 
flags   who   control   the   traffic   just   as   do   the 


64  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

policemen  on  Fifth  Avenue  and  Broadway. 
The  roads  are  never  permitted  to  fall  into  dis- 
repair, for  on  their  condition  depends  the  rapid- 
ity with  which  the  army  can  be  supplied  with 
food  and  ammunition.  Hence  road  gangs  and 
steam-rollers  and  sprinkhng-carts  are  at  work 
constantly.  When  the  war  is  over,  France 
will  have  better  roads  and  more  of  them  than 
she  ever  had  before.  There  are  speed-limit 
signs  ever3rwhere — heretofore  practically  un- 
known in  France,  where  any  one  who  was  care- 
less enough  to  get  run  over  was  liable  to  arrest 
for  obstructing  the  traffic.  At  frequent  in- 
tervals along  the  roads  are  blacksmith  shops 
and  motor-car  repair  stations,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  repair  cars,  veritable  garages  on  wheels, 
which,  when  news  of  an  accident  or  breakdown 
is  received,  go  tearing  toward  the  scene  of 
trouble  as  a  fire-engine  responds  to  an  alarm 
of  fire.  At  night  all  cars  must  run  without 
lights,  as  a  result  of  which  many  camions  and 
motor-buses  have  met  with  disaster  by  run- 
ning off  the  roads  in  the  darkness  and  tipping 
over  in  the  deep  ditches.  To  provide  for  this 
particular  form  of  mishap  the  Army  Service 
Corps    has    designed    a    most    ingenious    con- 


from  a  photograph  by  Meunsse. 

London  buses  at  the  front. 

"Far  a«  the  eye  can  sec  stretch  hiiiK  lines  of  Ix)ndon  motor-buses  in  war  coats 
<jf  clrphant-Kray,  crowded  with  sun-tanned  men  in  khaki  hurrying'  toward 
the  ircnchci." 


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ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    65 

trivance  which  yanks  the  huge  machines  out 
of  the  ditch  and  sets  them  on  the  road  again 
as  easily  as  though  they  were  stubborn  mules. 
Upon  the  door  of  every  house  we  passed, 
whether  chateau  or  cottage,  was  marked  the 
number  of  men  who  could  be  billeted  upon  it. 
There  are  signs  indicating  where  water  can  be 
obtained  and  fodder  and  pasturage  and  petrol. 
In  every  town  and  village  are  to  be  found 
military  interpreters,  known  by  a  distinctive 
cap  and  brassard,  who  are  always  ready  to 
straighten  out  a  misunderstanding  between  a 
Highlander  from  the  north  of  the  Tweed  and 
a  tirailleur  from  Tunisia,  who  will  assist  a 
Ghurka  from  the  Indian  hill  country  in  bar- 
gaining for  poultry  with  a  Flemish-speaking 
peasant,  or  instruct  a  lost  Senegalese  how  to 
get  back  to  his  command.  An  officers'  training- 
school  has  been  established  at  St.-Omer,  which 
is  the  British  Headquarters,  where  those  men 
in  the  ranks  who  possess  the  necessary  educa- 
tion are  fitted  to  receive  commissions.  After 
this  war  is  over  the  British  Army  will  no  longer 
be  officered  by  the  British  aristocracy.  The 
wholesale  promotions  of  enlisted  men  made 
necessary   by  the  appalling  losses   among  the 


6G  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

officers  will  result  in  completely  changing  the 
complexion  of  the  British  military  establish- 
ment. Provided  he  has  the  necessary  educa- 
tional qualifications,  the  son  of  a  day-laborer 
will  hereafter  stand  as  much  chance  as  the 
son  of  a  duke.  Did  you  know,  by  the  way, 
that  the  present  Chief  of  the  Imperial  General 
Staff  began  Hfe  as  a  footman  and  entered  the 
army  as  a  private  in  the  ranks  ? 

The  wonderful  thoroughness  of  the  British 
is  exempHfied  by  the  bulletins  which  are  issued 
every  morning  by  the  Intelligence  Department 
for  the  information  of  the  brigade  and  regi- 
mental commanders.  They  resemble  ordinary 
hand-bills  and  contain  a  summary  of  all  the 
information  which  the  Intelligence  Depart- 
ment has  been  able  to  collect  during  the  pre- 
ceding twenty-four  hours  as  to  what  is  going 
on  behind  the  German  lines — movements  of 
troops,  construction  of  new  trenches,  changes 
in  the  location  of  batteries,  shortage  of  ammu- 
nition, condition  of  the  roads;  everything,  in 
short,  which  might  be  of  any  conceivable  value 
to  the  British  to  know.  For  example,  the 
report  might  contain  a  sentence  something  like 
this:     "At    five    o'clock    to-morrow    morning 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    G^ 

the  Prussian  Guard,  which  has  been  holding 
position  No.  — ,  to  the  south  of  Ypres,  will  be 
relieved  by  the  47th  Bavarian  Landsturm" — 
which,  b>'  the  way,  would  probably  result  in 
the  British  attacking  the  position  mentioned. 
The  information  contained  in  these  bulletins 
comes  from  man}'  sources — from  spies  in  the 
pay  of  the  Intelligence  Department,  from 
aviators  who  make  reconnoissance  flights  over 
the  German  lines,  and  particularly  from  the 
inhabitants  of  the  invaded  regions,  who,  by 
various  ingenious  expedients,  succeed  in  com- 
municating to  the  Allies  much  important  in- 
formation— often  at  the  cost  of  their  lives. 

The  great  base  camps  which  the  British 
have  established  at  Calais  and  Havre  and 
Boulogne  and  Rouen  are  marvels  of  organiza- 
tion, efficiency,  and  cleanliness.  Cities  whose 
macadamized  streets  are  lined  with  portable 
houses  of  wood  or  metal  which  have  been 
brought  to  the  Continent  in  sections,  and  which 
have  sewers  and  telephone  systems  and  electric 
lights,  and  accommodations  for  a  hundred  thou- 
sand men  apiece,  have  sprung  up  on  the  sand 
dunes  of  the  French  coast  as  though  by  the 
wave  of  a  magician's  wand.     Here,  where  the 


68  ''VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

fresh,  healing  wind  blows  in  from  the  sea,  have 
been  established  hospitals,  each  with  a  thou- 
sand beds.  Huge  warehouses  have  been  built  of 
concrete  to  hold  the  vast  quantity  of  stores 
which  are  being  rushed  across  the  Channel 
by  an  endless  procession  of  transports  and 
cargo  steamers.  So  efficient  is  the  British 
field-post  system,  which  is  operated  by  the 
Army  Post-Office  Division  of  the  Royal  En- 
gineers, that  within  forty-eight  hours  after  a 
wife  or  mother  or  sweetheart  drops  a  letter 
into  a  post-box  in  England  that  letter  has  been 
delivered  in  the  trenches  to  the  man  to  whom 
it  was  addressed. 

In  order  to  prevent  military  information 
leaking  out  through  the  letters  which  are 
written  by  the  soldiers  to  the  folks  at  home, 
one  in  every  five  is  opened  by  the  regimental 
censor,  it  being  obviously  out  of  the  question 
to  peruse  them  all.  If,  however,  the  writer  is 
able  to  get  hold  of  one  of  the  precious  green 
envelopes,  whose  color  is  a  guarantee  of  pri- 
vate and  family  matters  only,  he  is  reason- 
ably certain  that  his  letter  will  not  be  read  by 
other  eyes  than  those  for  which  it  is  intended. 
Nor  does  the  field-post   confine  itself  to  the 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    69 

transmission  of  letters,  but  transmits  delicacies 
and  comforts  of  every  sort  to  the  bo3^s  in  the 
trenches,  and  the  boys  in  the  trenches  use  the 
same  medium  to  send  shell  fragments,  German 
helmets,  and  other  souvenirs  to  their  friends 
at  home.  I  know  a  lady  who  sent  her  son  in 
Flanders  a  box  of  fresh  asparagus  from  their 
Devonshire  garden  on  a  Friday,  and  he  had  it 
for  his  Sunday  dinner.  And  this  reminds  me 
of  an  interesting  little  incident  which  is  worth 
the  telling  and  might  as  well  be  told  here  as 
elsewhere.  A  well-known  American  business 
man,  the  president  of  one  of  New  York's  street- 
railway  systems,  has  a  son  who  is  a  second 
lieutenant  in  the  Royal  Artillery.  The  father 
was  called  back  to  America  at  a  time  when 
his  son's  battery  was  stationed  in  a  partic- 
ularly hot  corner  to  the  south  of  Ypres.  The 
father  was  desperately  anxious  to  see  his 
son  before  he  sailed,  but  he  knew  that  the 
chances  of  his  being  permitted  to  do  so  were 
almost  infinitesimal.  Nevertheless,  he  wrote 
a  note  to  Lord  Kitchener  explaining  the  cir- 
cumstances and  adding  that  he  realized  that 
it  was  probabl}'  quite  impossible  to  grant  such 
a  request.     He  left  the  note  himself  at  York 


70  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

House.  Before  he  had  been  back  in  his  hotel 
an  hour  he  was  called  to  the  telephone.  "This 
is  the  secretary  of  Lord  Kitchener  speaking," 
said  a  voice.  *'He  desires  me  to  say  that 
you  shall  certainly  see  your  son  before  return- 
ing to  America,  and  that  you  are  to  hold  your- 
self in  readiness  to  go  to  the  Continent  at  a 
moment's  notice."  A  few  days  later  he  re- 
ceived another  message  from  the  War  Office: 
"Take  to-morrow  morning's  boat  from  Folke- 
stone to  Boulogne.  Your  son  will  be  waiting 
for  you  on  the  quay."  The  long  arm  of  the 
great  War  Minister  had  reached  out  across  the 
English  Channel  and  had  picked  that  obscure 
second  Heutenant  out  from  that  little  Flemish 
village,  and  had  brought  him  by  motor-car  to 
the  coast,  with  a  twenty-four  hours'  leave  of 
absence  in  his  pocket,  that  he  might  say  good- 
by  to  his  father. 

The  maxim  that  "an  army  marches  on  its 
belly"  is  as  true  to-day  as  when  Napoleon 
uttered  it,  and  the  Army  Service  Corps  is 
seeing  to  it  that  the  belly  of  the  British  soldier 
is  never  empty.  Of  all  the  fighting  men  in 
the  field,  the  British  soldier  is  far  and  away 
the  best  fed.     He  is,  indeed,  almost  overfed, 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    71 

particularly  as  regards  jams,  marmalades,  pud- 
dings, and  other  articles  containing  large  quan- 
tities of  sugar,  which,  so  the  army  surgeons 
assert,  is  the  greatest  restorer  of  the  muscular 
tissues.  Though  the  sale  of  spirits  is  strictly 
prohibited  in  the  military  zone,  a  ration  of 
rum  is  served  out  at  daybreak  each  morning 
to  the  men  in  the  trenches. 

To  Miss  Jane  Addams  has  been  attributed 
the  following  assertion:  "We  heard  in  all  coun- 
tries similar  statements  in  regard  to  the  neces- 
sity for  the  use  of  stimulants  before  men  would 
engage  in  bayonet  charges,  that  they  have  a 
regular  formula  in  Germany,  that  they  give 
them  rum  in  England  and  absinthe  in  France; 
that  they  all  have  to  give  them  the  'dope'  be- 
fore the  bayonet  charge  is  possible."  Now, 
Miss  Addams  has  never,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
been  in  the  trenches.  Of  the  conditions  which 
exist  there  she  knows  only  by  hearsay.  Miss 
Addams  says  that  rum  is  given  to  the  British 
soldier.  That  is  perfectly  true.  In  pursuance 
of  orders  issued  by  the  Army  Medical  Corps, 
every  man  who  has  spent  the  night  in  the 
trenches  is  given  a  ration  (about  a  gill)  of  rum 
at  daybreak,  not  to  render  him  reckless,  as  Miss 


72  ''VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

Addams  would  have  us  believe,  but  to  counter- 
act the  effects  of  the  mud  and  water  in  which 
he  has  been  standing  for  many  hours.  But 
when  Miss  Addams  asserts  that  the  French 
soldiers  are  given  absinthe  she  makes  an  asser- 
tion that  is  without  foundation  of  fact.  Not 
only  have  I  never  seen  a  glass  of  absinthe 
served  in  France  since  the  law  was  passed 
which  made  its  sale  illegal,  but  I  have  never 
seen  spirits  of  any  kind  in  use  in  the  zone  of 
operations.  More  than  once,  coming  back, 
chilled  and  weary,  from  the  trenches,  I  have 
attempted  to  obtain  either  whiskey  or  brandy 
only  to  be  told  that  its  sale  is  rigidly  prohibited 
in  the  zone  of  the  armies.  The  regular  ration 
of  the  French  soldier  includes  now,  just  as 
in  time  of  peace,  a  pint  of  vin  ordinaire — the 
cheap  wine  of  the  country — this  being,  I  might 
add,  considerably  less  than  the  man  would 
drink  with  his  meals  were  he  in  civil  life.  As 
regards  the  conditions  which  exist  in  the  Ger- 
man armies  I  cannot  speak  with  the  same  as- 
surance, because  I  have  not  been  with  them 
since  the  autumn  of  1914.  During  the  march 
across  Belgium  there  was,  I  am  perfectly  will- 
ing to  admit,  considerable  drunkenness  among 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    73 

the  German  soldiers,  but  this  was  due  to  the 
men  looting  the  wine-cellars  in  the  towns 
through  which  thev  passed  and  not,  as  Miss 
Addams  would  have  us  believe,  to  their  officers 
having  systematically  "doped"  them.  I  have 
heard  it  stated,  on  various  occasions,  that  Ger- 
man troops  are  given  a  mixture  of  rum  and 
ether  before  going  into  action.  Whether  this 
is  true  I  cannot  say.  Personally,  I  doubt  it. 
If  a  man's  life  ever  depends  upon  a  clear  brain 
and  a  cool  head  it  is  when  he  is  going  into  bat- 
tle. Everything  considered,  therefore,  I  am 
convinced  that  intemperance  virtually  does  not 
exist  among  the  armies  in  the  field.  I  feel  that 
Miss  Addams  has  done  a  grave  injustice  to 
brave  and  sober  men  and  that  she  owes  them 
an  apology. 

The  British  troops  are  not  permitted  to  drink 
unboiled  or  unfiltered  water,  each  regiment  hav- 
ing two  steel  water-carts  fitted  with  Birkenfeldt 
filters  from  which  the  men  fill  their  water-bot- 
tles. As  a  result  of  this  precaution,  dysentery 
and  diarrhoea,  the  curse  of  armies  in  previous 
wars,  have  practically  disappeared,  while, 
thanks  to  compulsory  inoculation,  typhoid  is 
unknown.     Perhaps  the  most  miportant  of  all 


74  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

the  sanitary  devices  which  have  been  brought 
into  existence  by  this  war,  and  without  which 
it  would  not  be  possible  for  the  men  to  remain 
in  the  trenches  at  all,  is  the  great  force-pump 
that  is  operated  at  night  and  which  throws  lime 
and  carboHc  acid  on  the  unburied  dead.  It  is, 
indeed,  impossible  to  overpraise  the  work  being 
done  by  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps,  which 
has,  among  its  many  other  activities,  so  im- 
proved and  speeded  up  the  system  of  getting 
the  wounded  from  the  firing-line  to  the  hospitals 
that,  as  one  Tommy  remarked,  "You  'ears  a 
'ell  of  a  noise,  and  then  the  nurse  says:  *Sit 
hup  and  tike  this  broth.'  " 

Though  in  this  war  the  work  of  the  cavalry 
is  almost  negligible;  though  cartridges  and 
marmalade  are  hurried  to  the  front  on  motor- 
trucks and  the  wounded  are  hurried  from  the 
front  back  to  the  hospital  in  motor-ambulances; 
though  despatch  riders  bestride  panting  motor- 
cycles instead  of  panting  steeds;  though  scout- 
ing is  done  by  airmen  instead  of  horsemen, 
the  day  of  the  horse  in  warfare  has  by  no 
means  passed.  Without  the  horse,  indeed, 
the  guns  could  not  go  into  action,  for  no  form 
of  tractor  has  yet  been   devised   for  hauHng 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    75 

batteries  over  broken  country.  In  fact,  all  of 
the  belligerent  nations  are  experiencing  great 
difficulty  in  providing  a  sufficient  supply  of 
horses,  for  the  average  life  of  a  war-horse  is 
very  short — ten  days,  assert  some  authorities; 
sixteen,  say  others.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  warfare,  therefore,  the  horse  is 
treated  as  a  creature  which  must  be  cared  for 
when  sick  or  wounded  as  well  as  when  in  health, 
and  this  not  merely  from  motives  of  sentiment 
or  humanit}'  but  as  a  detail  of  military  effi- 
ciency. "  For  want  of  a  nail,"  runs  the  old  ditty, 
"the  shoe  was  lost;  for  "want  of  a  shoe  the 
horse  was  lost;  for  want  of  a  horse  the  rider 
was  lost;  for  want  of  a  rider  the  battle  was 
lost" — and  the  Royal  Army  Veterinary  Corps 
is  seeing  to  it  that  no  battles  are  lost  for  lack 
of  either  horses  or  horseshoes.  The  Army  Vet- 
erinary Corps  now  has  on  the  British  sector 
700  officers  and  8,cxx)  men,  whose  business  it  is 
to  conserve  the  lives  of  the  horses.  The  last 
report  that  I  have  seen  places  the  total  number 
of  horses  treated  in  the  various  hospital  units 
(each  of  which  accommodates  i,OCX)  animals)  as 
approximately  81,000,  of  which  some  47,000 
had   been   returned   to   the   Remount   Depart- 


-](>  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

ment  as  again  fit  for  active  service;  30,000 
were  still  under  treatment;  the  balance  having 
died,  been  destroyed,  or  sold. 

The  horses  in  use  by  the  British  Army  in 
France  are  the  very  pick  of  England,  the 
Colonies,  and  foreign  countries;  thorough- 
bred and  three-quarter  bred  hunters  from  the 
hunting  counties  and  from  Ireland;  hack- 
neys, draft,  and  farm  animals;  Walers  from 
Australia;  wire-jumpers  from  New  Zealand; 
hardy  stock  from  Alberta  and  Saskatchewan; 
sturdy  ponies  from  the  hill  country  of  India; 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  animals  from  the 
American  Southwest,  and  from  the  Argentine; 
to  say  nothing  of  the  great  sixteen-hand  mules 
from  Missouri  and  Spain. 

Animals  suffering  from  wounds  or  sickness 
are  shipped  back  to  the  hospital  bases  on  the 
coast  in  herds,  each  being  provided  with  a  sep- 
arate covered  stall,  or,  in  case  of  pneumonia, 
with  a  box-stall.  The  spotless  buildings,  with 
their  exercise  tracks  and  acres  of  green  pad- 
docks, suggest  a  race-course  rather  than  a  hos- 
pital for  horses  injured  in  war.  Each  hospital 
has  its  operating-sheds,  its  X-ray  department, 
its  wards  for  special  ailments,  its  laboratories 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LLNE    77 

for  preventive  research  work,  a  pharmacy,  a 
museum  which  affords  opportunity  for  the 
stud}'  of  the  effects  of  sabre,  shell,  and  bullet 
wounds,  and  a  staff  of  three  hundred  trained 
veterinarians.  Schools  have  also  been  estab- 
lished in  connection  with  the  hospitals  in 
which  the  grooms  and  attendants  are  taught 
the  elements  of  anatomy,  dentistry,  farriery, 
stabling,  feeding,  sanitation,  and,  most  impor- 
tant of  all,  the  care  of  hoofs.  All  the  methods 
and  equipment  employed  are  the  best  that 
science  can  suggest  and  money  can  obtain, 
everything  having  passed  the  inspection  of  the 
Duke  of  Portland  and  the  Earl  of  Lonsdale, 
the  two  greatest  horse-breeders  in  England. 
Attached  to  each  division  of  troops  in  the  field 
is  a  mobile  veterinary  section,  consisting  of  an 
officer  and  twenty-two  men,  who  are  equipped 
to  render  first-aid  service  to  wounded  horses 
and  whose  duty  it  is  to  decide  which  animals 
shall  be  sent  to  the  hospitals  for  treatment, 
which  are  fit  to  return  to  the  front  for  further 
service,  and  which  cases  are  hopeless  and  must 
be  destroyed.  The  enormous  economic  value 
of  this  system  is  conclusively  proved  by  the 
fact  that  it  has  reduced  sickness  among  horses 


78  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

in  the  British  Army  50  per  cent,  and  mortality 
47  per  cent. 

The  question  that  has  been  asked  me  more 
frequently  than  any  other  is  why  the  British 
with  upward  of  a  million  men  in  the  field,  are 
holding  only  about  fifty  miles  of  battle-front, 
as  compared  with  seventeen  miles  held  by  the 
Belgians  and  nearly  four  hundred  by  the  French. 
There  are  several  reasons  for  this.  It  should 
be  remembered,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
British  Army  is  composed  of  green  troops, 
while  the  French  ranks,  thanks  to  the  universal 
service  law,  are  filled  with  men  all  of  whom 
have  spent  at  least  three  years  with  the  colors. 
In  the  second  place,  the  British  sector  is  by  far 
the  most  difficult  portion  of  the  western  battle- 
front  to  hold,  not  only  because  of  the  configura- 
tion of  the  country,  which  offers  little  natural 
protection,  but  because  it  lies  squarely  athwart 
the  road  to  the  Channel  ports — and  it  is  to 
the  Channel  ports  that  the  Germans  are  going 
if  men  and  shells  can  get  them  there.  The 
fighting  along  the  British  sector  is,  moreover, 
of  a  more  desperate  and  relentless  nature  than 
elsewhere  on  the  Allied  line,  because  the 
Germans    nourish    a    deeper    hatred    for    the 


ON  THE  BRITISH  BATTLE-LINE    79 

English  than  for  all  their  other  enemies   put 
together. 

It  was  against  the  British,  remember,  that 
the  Germans  first  used  their  poison-gas.  The 
first  engagement  of  importance  in  which  gas 
played  a  part  was  the  Second  Battle  of  Ypres, 
lasting  from  April  22  until  May  13,  which 
will  probably  take  rank  in  history  as  one 
of  the  greatest  battles  of  all  time.  In  it  the 
Germans,  owing  to  the  surprise  and  confusion 
created  by  their  introduction  of  poison-gas, 
came  within  a  hair's  breadth  of  breaking 
through  the  Allied  line,  and  would  certainly 
have  done  so  had  it  not  been  for  the  gallantry 
and  self-sacrifice  of  the  Canadian  Division, 
which,  at  the  cost  of  appalling  losses,  won  im- 
perishable fame.  The  German  bombardment 
of  Ypres  began  on  April  20  and  in  forty-eight 
hours,  so  terrible  was  the  rain  of  heavy  pro- 
jectiles which  poured  down  upon  it,  the  quaint 
old  city,  with  its  exquisite  Cloth  Hall,  was  but 
a  heap  of  blackened,  smoking  ruins.  That 
portion  of  the  Allied  line  to  the  north  of  the 
city  was  held,  along  a  front  of  some  four  miles, 
by  a  French  division  composed  of  Colonials, 
Algerians,  and  Senegalese,  stiffened  by  several 


8o  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

line  regiments.  Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
22d,  peering  above  their  trenches,  they  saw, 
rolUng  toward  them  across  the  Flemish  plain, 
an  impalpable  cloud  of  yellowish-green,  which, 
fanned  by  a  brisk  wind,  moved  forward  at  the 
speed  of  a  trotting-horse.  It  came  on  with 
the  remorselessness  of  Fate.  It  blotted  out 
what  was  happening  behind  it  as  the  smoke 
screen  from  a  destroyer  masks  the  manoeuvres 
of  a  Dreadnaught.  The  spring  vegetation 
shrivelled  up  before  it  as  papers  shrivel  when 
thrown  into  a  fire.  It  blasted  everything  it 
touched  as  with  a  hand  of  death.  No  one 
knew  what  it  was  or  whence  it  came.  Nearer 
it  surged  and  nearer.  It  was  within  a  hundred 
metres  of  the  French  position  .  .  .  fifty  .  .  . 
thirty  .  .  .  ten  .  .  .  and  then  the  silent  hor- 
ror was  upon  them.  Men  began  to  cough 
and  hack  and  strangle.  Their  eyes  smarted 
and  burned  with  the  pungent,  acrid  fumes. 
Soldiers  staggered  and  fell  before  it  in  twos 
and  fours  and  dozens  as  miners  succumb  to 
fire-damp.  Men,  strained  and  twisted  into 
grotesque,  horrid  attitudes,  were  sobbing  their 
lives  out  on  the  floors  of  the  trenches.  The 
fire  of  rifles  and  machine-guns  weakened,  died 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    8i 

down,  ceased.  The  whole  Hne  swayed,  wavered, 
trembled  on  the  verge  of  panic.  Just  then  a 
giant  Algerian  shouted:  "The  Boches  have 
turned  loose  evil  spirits  upon  us  !  We  can  fight 
men,  but  we  cannot  fight  afrits!  Run,  brothers! 
Run  for  your  lives!"  That  was  all  that  was 
needed  to  precipitate  the  disaster.  The  super- 
stitious Africans,  men  from  the  West  Coast 
where  voodooism  still  holds  sway,  men  of  the 
desert  steeped  in  the  traditions  and  mysteries 
of  Islam,  broke  and  ran.  The  French  white 
troops,  carried  off  their  feet  by  the  sudden  rush, 
were  swept  along  in  the  mad  debacle.  And 
as  they  ran  the  yellow  cloud  pursued  them  re- 
morselessly, like  a  great  hand  reaching  out  for 
their  throats. 

An  eye-witness  of  the  rout  that  followed  told 
me  that  he  never  expects  to  see  its  like  this  side 
of  the  gates  of  hell.  The  fields  were  dotted 
with  blue-clad  figures  wearing  kepis,  and 
brown-clad  ones  wearing  turbans  and  tar- 
booshes, who  stumbled  and  fell  and  rose  again 
and  staggered  along  a  few  paces  and  fell  to 
rise  no  more.  The  highways  leading  from  the 
trenches  were  choked  with  maddened,  fear- 
crazed  white  and  black  and  brown  men  who 


82  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

had  thrown  away  their  rifles,  their  cartridge- 
pouches,  their  knapsacks,  in  some  cases  even 
their  coats  and  shirts.  Some  were  calling  on 
Christ  and  some  on  Allah  and  some  on  their 
strange  pagan  gods.  Their  eyes  were  starting 
from  their  sockets,  on  their  foreheads  stood 
glistening  beads  of  sweat,  they  slavered  at  the 
mouth  like  dogs,  their  cheeks  and  breasts  were 
flecked  with  foam.  ''We're  not  afraid  of  the 
Boches  !"  screamed  a  giant  sergeant  of  zouaves, 
on  whose  breast  were  the  ribbons  of  a  dozen 
wars.  *'We  can  fight  them  until  hell  turns  cold. 
But  this  we  cannot  fight.  Le  Bon  Dieu  does 
not  expect  us  to  stay  and  die  Hke  rats  in  a 
sewer."  Guns  and  gun-caissons  passed  at  a 
gallop,  Turcos  and  tirailleurs  cHnging  to  them, 
the  fear-crazed  gunners  flogging  their  reeking 
horses  frantically.  The  ditches  bordering  the 
roads  were  filled  with  overturned  wagons  and 
abandoned  equipment.  Giant  negroes,  naked 
to  the  waist,  tore  by  shrieking  that  the  spirits 
had  been  loosed  upon  them  and  slashing  with 
their  bayonets  at  all  who  got  in  their  path. 
Mounted  oflBcers,  frantic  with  anger  and  morti- 
fication, using  their  swords  and  pistols  indis- 
criminately, vainly  tried  to  check  the  human 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    83 

stream.  And  through  the  four-mile  breach 
which  the  poison-gas  had  made  the  Germans 
were  pouring  in  their  thousands.  The  roar  of 
their  artillery  sounded  like  unceasing  thunder. 
The  scarlet  rays  of  the  setting  sun  lighted  up 
such  a  scene  as  Flanders  had  never  before 
beheld  in  all  its  bloody  histor}^  Then  dark- 
ness came  and  the  sky  was  streaked  across 
with  the  fiery  trails  of  rockets  and  the  sud- 
den splotches  of  bursting  shrapnel.  The  tumult 
w^as  beyond  all  imagination — the  crackle  of 
musketr}',  the  rattle  of  machine-guns,  the 
crash  of  high  explosive,  the  thunder  of  falling 
walls,  the  clank  of  harness  and  the  rumble  of 
wheels,  the  screams  of  the  wounded  and  the 
groans  of  the  d3'ing,  the  harsh  commands  of 
the  officers,  the  murmur  of  many  voices,  and 
the  shuffle,  shuffle,  shuffle  of  countless  hurrying 
feet. 

And  through  the  breach  still  poured  the 
helmeted  legions  like  water  bursting  through 
a  broken  dam.  Into  that  breach  were  thrown 
the  Canadians.  The  story  of  how,  over- 
whelmed by  superior  numbers  of  both  men  and 
guns,  choked  by  poison-fumes,  reeling  from 
exhaustion,  sometimes  without  food,  for  it  was 


84  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

impossible  to  get  it  to  them,  under  such  a  rain 
of  shells  as  the  world  had  never  before  seen, 
the  brawny  men  from  the  oversea  Dominion 
fought  on  for  a  solid  week,  and  thereby  saved 
the  army  from  annihilation,  needs  no  re-telHng 
here.  Brigade  after  brigade  of  fresh  troops, 
division  after  division,  was  hurled  against  them 
but  still  they  battled  on.  So  closely  were 
they  pressed  at  times  that  they  fought  in  little 
groups;  men  from  Ontario  and  Quebec 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  blood-stained  heroes 
from  Alberta  and  Saskatchewan.  At  last, 
when  it  seemed  as  though  human  endurance 
could  stand  the  strain  no  longer,  up  went  the 
cry,  "Here  come  the  guns!"  and  the  Cana- 
dian batteries,  splashed  with  sweat  and  mud, 
tore  into  action  on  the  run.  "Action  front!" 
screamed  the  officers,  and  the  guns  whirled 
like  polo  ponies  so  that  their  muzzles  faced 
the  oncoming  wave  of  gray.  "With  shrap- 
nel! .  .  ,  Load!"  The  lean  and  polished  projec- 
tiles slipped  in  and  the  breech-blocks  snapped 
home.  "Fire  at  will!"  and  the  blast  of  steel 
tore  bloody  avenues  in  the  German  ranks. 
But  fresh  battalions  filled  the  gaps — the  Ger- 
man reserves  seemed  inexhaustible — and  they 


60 


to 


D. 

CO     -M 

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a  ^ 

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in     p 

60 

C 


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c 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE     85 

still  came  on.  At  one  period  of  the  battle  the 
Germans  were  so  close  to  the  guns  that  the 
order  was  given,  *'Set  your  fuses  at  zero!" 
which  means  that  a  shell  bursts  almost  the 
moment  it  leaves  the  muzzle  of  the  gun.  It 
was  not  until  earh'  on  Friday  morning  that 
reinforcements  reached  the  shattered  Cana- 
dians and  enabled  them  to  hold  their  ground. 
Later  the  Northumbrian  Division — Territo- 
rials arrived  onl}'  three  days  before  from  the 
English  training-camps — were  sent  to  aid  them 
and  proved  themselves  as  good  soldiers  as  the 
veterans  beside  whom  they  fought.  For  days 
the  fate  of  the  army  hung  in  the  balance,  for 
there  seemed  no  end  to  the  German  reserves, 
who  were  wiped  out  by  whole  divisions  only 
to  be  replaced  by  more,  but  against  the  stone 
wall  of  the  Canadian  resistance  the  men  in  the 
spiked  helmets  threw  themselves  in  vain.  On 
May  13,  1915,  after  three  weeks  of  continuous 
fighting,  may  be  said  to  have  ended  the  Second 
Battle  of  Ypres,  not  in  a  terrific  and  decisive 
climax,  but  slowl\',  sullenly,  like  two  prize- 
fighters who  have  fought  to  the  very  limit  of 
their  strength. 

According  to  the  present  British  system,  the 


86  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

soldiers  spend  three  weeks  at  the  front  and  one 
week  in  the  rear — if  possible,  out  of  sound  of 
the  guns.  The  entire  three  weeks  at  the  front 
is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  spent  in  the 
trenches,  though  every  third  day  the  men  are 
given  a  breathing  spell.  Three  weeks  in  the 
trenches !  I  wonder  if  you  of  the  sheltered 
life  have  any  but  the  haziest  notion  of  what 
that  means.  I  wonder  if  yow,  Mr.  Lawyer; 
yoUy  Mr.  Doctor;  you^  Mr.  Business  Man,  can 
conceive  of  spending  your  summer  vacation  in 
a  ditch  4  feet  wide  and  8  feet  deep,  sometimes 
with  mud  and  water  to  your  knees,  sometimes 
faint  from  heat  and  lack  of  air,  in  your  nostrils 
the  stench  of  bodies  long  months  dead,  rotting 
amid  the  wire  entanglements  a  few  yards  in 
front  of  you,  and  over  your  head  steel  death 
whining  angrily,  ceaselessly.  I  wonder  if  you 
can  imagine  what  it  must  be  like  to  sleep — 
when  the  roar  of  the  guns  dies  down  sufficiently 
to  make  sleep  possible — on  foul  straw  in  a  hole 
hollowed  in  the  earth,  into  which  you  have  to 
crawl  on  all  fours,  like  an  animal  into  its  lair. 
I  wonder  if  you  can  picture  yourself  as  wearing 
a  uniform  so  stiff  with  sweat  and  dirt  that  it 
would  stand  alone,  and  underclothes  so  rotten 


'*  Bodies,  long  months  dead,  rotting  amid  the  wire 
entanglements." 


/'    ":  ;  h'jUjfjaphi  //;,     U 


'Imajfine  what  it  must  be  like  to  sleep  in  a  hole  in  the  earth, 
into  which  you  have  to  crawl  on  all  fours,  like  an  animal 
into  its  lair." 


o 

c 


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o 

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o 

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I 

Ml 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE     87 

with  filth  that  they  would  fall  apart  were  you 
to  take  them  off,  your  body  so  crawling  with 
vermin  and  so  long  unwashed  that  you  are  an 
offense  to  all  whom  you  approach — 3'et  with 
no  chance  to  bathe  or  to  change  your  clothes 
or  sometimes  even  to  wash  your  hands  and 
face  for  weeks  on  end.  I  wonder  how  your 
nerves  would  stand  the  strain  if  you  knew  that 
at  any  moment  a  favorable  wind  might  bring 
a  gas  cloud  rolling  down  upon  you  to  kill  you 
by  slow  strangulation,  or  that  a  shell  might 
drop  into  the  trench  in  which  you  were  stand- 
ing in  water  to  your  knees  and  leave  you  float- 
ing about  in  a  bloody  mess  which  turned  that 
water  red,  or  that  a  Tauhe  might  let  loose 
upon  you  a  shower  of  steel  arrows  which  would 
pass  through  you  as  a  needle  passes  through  a 
piece  of  cloth,  or  that  a  mine  might  be  exploded 
beneath  your  feet  and  distribute  you  over  the 
landscape  in  fragments  too  small  to  be  worth 
bur}'ing,  or,  worse  still,  to  leave  you  alive  amid 
a  litter  of  heads  and  arms  and  legs  which  a 
moment  before  had  belonged  to  your  comrades, 
the  horror  of  it  all  turning  you  into  a  maniac 
who  alternately  shrieks  and  gibbers  and  rocks 
with  insane  mirth  at  the  horror  of  it  all.    I  am 


88  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

perfectly  aware  that  this  makes  anything  but 
pleasant  reading,  my  friends,  but  if  men  of 
gentle  birth,  men  with  university  educations, 
men  who  are  accustomed  to  the  same  refine- 
ments and  luxuries  that  you  are,  can  endure 
these  things,  why,  it  seems  to  me  that  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  endure  reading  about  them. 
The  effect  of  some  of  the  newer  types  of 
high-explosive  shells  is  almost  beyond  belief. 
For  sheer  horror  and  destruction  those  from 
the  Austrian-made  Skoda  howitzer,  known  as 
"Pilseners,"  make  the  famous  42-centimetre 
shells  seem  almost  kind.  The  Skoda  shells 
weigh  2,800  lbs.,  and  their  usual  curve  is  4^^ 
miles  high.  In  soft  ground  they  penetrate  20 
feet  before  exploding.  The  explosion,  which 
occurs  two  seconds  after  impact,  kills  every 
living  thing  within  150  yards,  while  scores  of 
men  who  escape  the  flying  metal  are  killed, 
lacerated,  or  blinded  by  the  mere  pressure  of 
the  gas.  This  gas  pressure  is  so  terrific  that  it 
breaks  in  the  roofs  and  partitions  of  bomb-proof 
shelters.  Of  men  close  by  not  a  fragment  re- 
mains. The  gas  gets  into  the  body  cavities  and 
expands,  literally  tearing  them  to  pieces.  Oc- 
casionally the  clothes  are  stripped  off  leaving 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE     89 

onlv  the  boots.  Rifle-barrels  near  by  are 
melted  as  though  struck  by  lightning.  These 
mammoth  shells  travel  comparatively  slowly, 
however,  usuall}'  giving  enough  warning  of 
their  approach  so  that  the  men  have  time  to 
dodge  them.  Their  progress  is  so  slow,  indeed, 
that  sometimes  they  can  be  seen.  Far  more 
terrifying  is  the  smaller  shell  which,  because  of 
its  shrill,  plaintive  whine,  has  been  nicknamed 
"Weary  Willie,"  or  those  from  the  new  "noise- 
less" field-gun  recently  introduced  by  the  Ger- 
mans, which  gives  no  intimation  of  its  approach 
until  it  explodes  with  a  shattering  crash  above 
the  trenches.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  hundreds 
of  officers  and  men  are  going  insane  from  the 
strain  that  they  are  under,  and  that  hundreds 
more  are  in  the  hospitals  suffering  from  neuritis 
and  nervous  breakdown  ^  Is  it  any  wonder 
that,  when  their  term  in  the  trenches  is  over, 
they  have  to  be  taken  out  of  sight  and  sound 
of  battle  and  their  shattered  nerves  restored 
by  means  of  a  carefully  planned  routine  of 
sports  and  games,  as  though  they  were  children 
in  a  kindergarten  .'' 

The   breweries,  mills,  and   factories  immedi- 
ately behind  the  British  lines  have,  wherever 


90  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

practicable,  been  converted  into  bath-houses 
to  which  the  men  are  marched  as  soon  as  they 
leave  the  trenches.  The  soldiers  strip  and, 
retaining  nothing  but  their  boots,  which  they 
deposit  beside  the  bathtub,  they  go  in,  soap 
in  one  hand  and  scrubbing-brush  in  the  other, 
the  hot  bath  being  followed  by  a  cold  shower. 
The  underclothes  which  they  have  taken  off 
are  promptly  burned  and  fresh  sets  given  to 
them,  as  are  also  clean  uniforms,  the  discarded 
ones,  after  passing  through  a  fumigating  ma- 
chine, being  washed,  pressed,  and  repaired 
by  the  numerous  Frenchwomen  who  are  em- 
ployed for  the  purpose,  so  as  to  be  ready  for 
their  owners  the  next  time  they  return  from 
the  trenches.  At  one  of  these  improvised 
bath-houses  thirteen  hundred  men  pass  through 
each  day. 

"What  do  the  French  think  of  the  Eng- 
lish?" 

To  every  one  I  put  that  question.  Summing 
up  all  opinions,  I  should  say  that  the  French 
thoroughly  appreciate  the  value  of  Britain's 
sea  power  and  what  it  has  meant  to  them  for 
her  to  have  control  of  the  seas,  but  they  regard 
her  lack  of  military  preparedness  and  the  de- 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    91 

ficienc}'  of  technic  among  the  British  officers 
as  inexcusable;  they  consider  the  deep-seated 
opposition  to  conscription  in  England  as  in- 
comprehensible; the}'  view  the  bickerings  be- 
tween British  capital  and  labor  as  little  short 
of  criminal;  they  regard  the  British  officers 
who  needlessly  expose  themselves  as  being  not 
heroic  but  insane.  The  attitude  of  the  British 
press  was,  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  war  at  least, 
calculated  to  put  a  slight  strain  on  the  entente 
cordiale.  Anxious,  naturally  enough,  to  throw 
into  high  relief  the  exploits  of  the  British  troops 
in  France,  the  British  newspapers  vastly  exag- 
gerated the  importance  of  the  British  expedition, 
thus  throwing  the  whole  picture  of  the  war  out 
of  perspective.  The  behavior  of  the  British  of- 
ficers, moreover,  though  punctiliously  correct, 
was  not  such  as  to  mend  matters,  for  they 
assumed  an  attitude  of  haughty  condescension 
which,  as  I  happen  to  know,  was  extremely 
galling  to  their  French  colleagues,  most  of 
whom  had  forgotten  more  about  the  science  of 
war  than  the  patronizing  youngsters  who  of- 
ficered the  new  armies  had  ever  known.  "To 
listen  to  you  English  and  to  read  your  news- 
papers," I  heard  a  F  renchman  say  to  an  Eng- 


92  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

lishman  in  the  Traveller's  Club  in  Paris  not 
long  ago,  "one  would  think  that  there  was  no 
one  in  France  except  the  British  Army  and  a 
few  Germans." 

I  have  never  heard  any  one  in  France  suggest 
that  the  British  officer  is  lacking  in  bravery, 
but  I  have  often  heard  it  intimated  that  he  is 
lacking  in  brains.  The  view  is  held  that  he 
regards  the  war  as  a  sporting  affair,  much  as 
he  would  regard  polo  or  a  big-game  hunting, 
rather  than  as  a  deadly  serious  business.  When 
the  British  officers  in  Flanders  brought  over 
several  packs  of  hounds  and  thus  attempted  to 
combine  war  and  hunting,  it  created  a  more 
unfavorable  impression  among  the  French  than 
if  the  British  had  lost  a  battle.  "The  British 
Army,"  a  distinguished  Italian  general  re- 
marked to  me  shortly  before  Italy  joined  the 
AlHes,  "is  composed  of  magnificent  material; 
it  is  well  fed  and  admirably  equipped — but 
the  men  look  on  war  as  sport  and  go  into  battle 
as  they  would  into  a  game  of  football."  To 
the  Frenchman,  whose  soil  is  under  the  heel 
of  the  invader,  whose  women  have  been  vio- 
lated by  a  ruthless  and  brutal  soldiery,  whose 
historic  monuments  have  been  destroyed,  and 


ON  THE   BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    93 

whose  towns  have  been  sacked  and  burned, 
this  attitude  of  mind  is  absolutely  incompre- 
hensible, and  in  his  heart  he  resents  it.  The 
above,  mind  you,  is  written  in  no  spirit  of 
criticism;  I  am  merely  attempting  to  show 
you  the  Englishman  through  French  eyes. 

I  have  heard  it  said,  in  criticism,  that  the 
new  British  Army  is  composed  of  youngsters. 
So  it  is,  but  for  the  life  of  me  I  fail  to  see  why 
this  should  be  any  objection.  The  ranks  of 
both  armies  during  our  Civil  War  were  filled 
with  boys  still  in  their  teens.  It  was  one  of 
Wellington's  generals,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
who  used  to  say  that,  for  really  desperate  work, 
he  would  always  take  lads  in  preference  to 
seasoned  veterans  because  the  latter  were  apt 
to  be  "too  cunning."  "These  children,"  ex- 
claimed Marshal  Ney,  reviewing  the  beard- 
less conscripts  of  1813,  "are  wonderful!  I  can 
do  anything  with  them;  they  will  go  any- 
where !" 

But  the  thing  that  really  counts,  when  all  is 
said  and  done,  is  the  spirit  of  the  men.  The 
British  soldier  of  this  new  army  has  none  of 
the  rollicking,  devil-may-care  recklessness  of 
the  traditional  Tommy  Atkins.     He  has   not 


94  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

joined  the  army  from  any  spirit  of  adventure  or 
because  he  wanted  to  see  the  world.  He  is  not 
an  adventurer;  he  is  a  crusader.  With  him  it 
is  a  deadly  serious  business.  He  has  not  en- 
listed because  he  wanted  to,  or  because  he  had 
to,  but  because  he  felt  he  ought  to.  In  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  he  has  left  a  family, 
a  comfortable  home,  and  a  good  job  behind 
him.  And,  unHke  the  stay-at-homes  in  Eng- 
land, he  doesn't  make  the  mistake  of  under- 
rating his  enemy.  He  knows  that  the  head- 
lines which  appear  regularly  in  the  EngUsh 
papers  exultantly  announcing  "another  British 
advance"  are  generally  buncombe.  He  knows 
that  it  isn't  a  question  of  advancing  but  of 
hanging  on.  He  knows  that  he  will  have  to 
fight  with  every  ounce  of  fight  there  is  in  him 
if  he  is  to  remain  where  he  is  now.  He  knows 
that  before  the  Germans  can  be  driven  out  of 
France  and  Belgium,  much  less  across  the 
Rhine,  all  England  will  be  wearing  crape.  He 
knows  that  there  is  no  truth  in  the  reports  that 
the  enemy  is  weakening.  He  knows  it  because 
hasn't  he  vainly  thrown  himself  in  successive 
waves  against  that  unyielding  wall  of  steel .'' 
He  knows  that  it  is  going  to  be  a  long  war — 


ON  THE  BRITISH   BATTLE-LINE    95 

probably  a  very  long  war  indeed.  Every 
British  officer  or  soldier  with  whom  I  have 
talked  has  said  that  he  expects  that  the  spring 
of  1916  will  find  them  in  virtually  the  same 
positions  that  they  have  occupied  for  the  past 
year.  They  will  gain  ground  in  some  places, 
of  course,  and  lose  ground  in  others,  but  the 
winter,  so  the  men  in  the  trenches  believe, 
will  see  no  radical  alteration  in  the  present 
western  battle-line.  All  this,  of  course,  will 
not  make  pleasant  reading  in  England,  where 
the  Government  and  certain  sections  of  the 
Press  have  given  the  people  the  impression  that 
Germany  is  already  beaten  to  her  knees  and 
that  it  is  all  over  bar  the  shouting.  Out  along 
the  battle-front,  however,  in  the  trenches,  and 
around  the  camp-fires,  you  do  not  hear  the 
men  discussing  "the  terms  of  peace  we  will 
grant  Germany,"  or  "What  shall  we  do  with 
the  Kaiser  ?"  They  are  not  talking  much,  they 
are  not  singing  much,  they  are  not  boasting 
at  all,  but  they  have  settled  down  to  the  hercu- 
lean task  that  lies  before  them  with  a  grim 
determination,  a  bulldog  tenacity  of  purpose, 
which  is  eventuall}',  I  believe,  going  to  prove 
the  deciding  factor  in  the  war.    Nothing  better 


96  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

illustrates  this  spirit  than  the  inscription  which 
I  saw  on  a  cross  over  a  newly  made  grave  in 
Flanders: 

TELL  ENGLAND,  YE  THAT  PASS  THIS  MONUMENT, 
THAT  WE   WHO   REST  HERE   DIED   CONTENT. 


Ill 

CAMPAIGNING   IN  THE   VOSGES 

THE  sergeant  in  charge  of  the  machine- 
gun,  taking  advantage  of  a  lull  in  the 
rifle-fire  which  had  crackled  and  roared 
along  the  trenches  since  dawn,  was  sprawled 
on  his  back  in  the  gun-pit,  reading  a  magazine. 
What  attracted  my  attention  was  its  being  an 
American  magazine. 

"Where  did  you  learn  to  read  English?"  I 
asked  him  curiously. 

"In  America,"  said  he. 

"What  part?"  said  I. 

"Schenectady,"  he  answered.  "Was  with 
the  General  Electric  until  the  war  began." 

"I'm  from  up-State  myself,"  I  remarked. 
"My  people  live  in  Syracuse." 

"The  hell  you  say  !"  he  exclaimed,  scrambling 
to  his  feet  and  grasping  my  hand  cordially.  "I 
took  you  for  an  Englishman.  From  Syracuse, 
eh  ?     Why,  that   makes   us  sort  of  neighbors, 

97 


98  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

doesn't  it  ?  We  ought  to  have  a  drink  on  it. 
I  suppose  the  Boches  have  plenty  of  beer  over 
there,"  waving  his  hand  in  the  direction  of  the 
German  trenches,  of  which  I  could  catch  a 
glimpse  through  a  loophole,  "but  we  haven't 
anything  here  but  water.  I've  got  an  idea, 
though  !  Back  in  the  States,  when  they  have 
those  Old  Home  Week  reunions,  they  always 
fire  off  an  anvil  or  the  town  cannon.  So  what's 
the  matter  with  celebrating  this  reunion  by 
letting  the  Boches  have  a  few  rounds  from  the 
machine-gun  ?" 

Seating  himself  astride  the  bicycle  saddle  on 
the  trail  of  the  machine-gun,  he  swung  the  lean 
barrel  of  the  wicked  little  weapon  until  it 
rested  on  the  German  trenches  a  hundred 
yards  away.  Then  he  slipped  the  end  of  a 
cartridge-carrier  into  the  breech. 

"Three  rousing  cheers  for  the  U.  S.  A.!" 
he  shouted,  and  pressed  a  button.  Rrr-r-r-r- 
r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rrrip  went  the  mi- 
trailleuse, with  the  noise  of  a  million  mowing- 
machines.  Flame  spurted  from  its  muzzle  as 
water  spurts  from  the  nozzle  of  a  fire-hose. 
The  racket  in  the  log-roofed  gun-pit  was  ear- 
shattering.    The  blast  of  bullets  spattered  the 


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CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES    99 

German  trenches,  they  pinged  metallically 
against  the  steel  plates  set  in  the  embrasures, 
they  kicked  up  countless  spurts  of  yellow 
earth.  The  sergeant  stood  up,  grinning,  and 
with  a  grimy  handkerchief  wiped  from  his  face 
the  powder  stains  and  perspiration. 

"If  3'ou  should  happen  to  be  in  Schenectady 
you  might  drop  in  at  the  General  Electric  plant 
and  tell  the  boys — "  he  began,  but  the  sentence 
was  never  finished,  for  just  then  a  shell  whined 
low  above  our  heads  and  burst  somewhere  be- 
hind the  trenches  with  the  roar  of  an  exploding 
powder-mill.  We  had  disturbed  the  Germans' 
afternoon  siesta,  and  their  batteries  were  show- 
ing their  resentment. 

"I  think  that  perhaps  I'd  better  be  moving 
along,''  said  I  hastily.  ''It's  getting  on  toward 
dinner-time." 

"Well,  s'long,"  said  he  regretfully.  "And 
say,"  he  called  after  me,  "when  you  get  back 
to  little  old  New  York  would  you  mind  dropping 
into  the  Knickerbocker  and  having  a  drink 
for  me .''  And  be  sure  and  give  my  regards  to 
Broadway." 

"I  certainly  will,"  said  I. 

And   that  is  how  a   Franco-American  whose 


loo  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

name  I  do  not  know,  sergeant  in  a  French  line 
regiment  whose  number  I  may  not  mention, 
and  I  held  an  Old  Home  Week  celebration  of 
our  own  in  the  French  trenches  in  Alsace. 
For  all  I  know  there  may  have  been  some  other 
residents  of  central  New  York  over  in  the 
German  trenches.  If  so,  they  made  no  at- 
tempt to  join  our  Httle  reunion.  Had  they 
done  so  they  would  have  received  a  very  warm 
reception. 

There  were  several  reasons  why  I  welcomed 
the  opportunity  offered  me  by  the  French  Gen- 
eral Staff  to  see  the  fighting  in  Alsace.  In  the 
first  place  a  veil  of  secrecy  had  been  thrown 
over  the  operations  in  that  region,  and  the 
mysterious  is  always  alluring.  Secondly,  most 
of  the  fighting  that  I  have  seen  has  been  either 
in  flat  or  only  moderately  hilly  countries,  and 
I  was  curious  to  see  how  warfare  is  conducted 
in  a  region  as  mountainous  and  as  heavily  for- 
ested as  the  Adirondacks  or  Oregon.  Again, 
the  Alsace  sector  is  at  the  extreme  southern 
end  of  that  great  battle-line,  more  than  four 
hundred  miles  long,  which  stretches  its  unlovely 
length  across  Europe  from  the  North  Sea  to 


In  the  French  ircnclics  un  llic  \  scr. 

To  put  onc'»  head  a  fraction  of  an  inch  above  the  parapet  is  to  become  a  corpse, 
lo  a  watch  i>  kept  on  the  enemy  throuKh  periscopes. 


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CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES     loi 

the  Alps,  like  some  monstrous  and  deadly  snake. 
And  lasth',  I  wanted  to  see  the  retaking  of 
that  narrow  strip  of  territory  lying  between 
the  summit  of  the  Vosges  and  the  Rhine 
which  for  more  than  forty  years  has  been 
mourned  by  France  as  one  of  her  **lost  prov- 
mces. 

This  land  of  Alsace  Is,  In  many  respects, 
the  most  beautiful  that  I  have  ever  seen. 
Strung  along  the  horizon,  like  sentinels  wrapped 
In  mantles  of  green,  the  peaks  of  the  Vosges 
loom  against  the  sky.  On  the  slopes  of  the 
ridges,  massed  in  their  black  battalions,  stand 
forests  of  spruce  and  pine.  Through  peaceful 
valleys  silver  streams  meander  leisurely,  and  In 
the  meadows  which  border  them  cattle  stand 
knee-deep  amid  the  lush  green  grass.  The  vil- 
lages, their  tortuous,  cobble-paved  streets  lined 
on  either  side  by  dim  arcades,  and  the  old, 
old  houses,  with  their  turrets  and  balconies  and 
steep-pitched  pottery  roofs,  give  you  the  feel- 
ing that  they  are  not  real,  but  that  they  are 
scenery  on  a  stage,  and  this  illusion  is  height- 
ened by  the  men  in  their  jaunty  berets  and 
wooden  sabots,  and  the  women,  whose  huge 
black  silk  head-dresses  accentuate  the  freshness 


I02  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

of  their  complexions.  It  is  at  once  a  region 
of  ruggedness  and  majesty  and  grandeur,  of 
quaintness  and  simplicity  and  charm.  As  I 
motored  through  it,  it  was  hard  to  make  my- 
self believe  that  death  was  abroad  in  so  fair 
a  land,  and  that  over  there,  on  the  other  side 
of  those  near-by  hills,  men  were  engaged  in 
the  business  of  wholesale  slaughter.  I  was 
brought  to  an  abrupt  realization  of  it,  however, 
as  we  were  passing  through  the  old  gray  town 
of  Gerardmer.  I  heard  a  sudden  outcry,  and 
the  streets,  which  a  moment  before  had  been 
a-bustle  with  the  usual  market-day  crowd, 
were  all  at  once  deserted.  The  people  dived 
into  their  houses  as  a  woodchuck  dives  into 
its  hole.  The  sentries  on  duty  in  front  of  the 
Etat-Major  were  staring  upward.  High  in  the 
sky,  approaching  with  the  speed  of  an  express- 
train,  was  what  looked  like  a  great  white  sea- 
gull, but  which,  from  the  silver  sheen  of  its 
armor-plated  body,  I  knew  to  be  a  German 
Tauhe.  "We're  in  for  another  bombardment," 
remarked  an  officer.  "The  German  airmen 
have  been  visiting  us  every  day  of  late."  As 
the  aircraft  swooped  lower  and  nearer,  a  field- 
gun  concealed  on  the  wooded  hillside  above  the 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES     103 

town  spoke  sharph',  and  a  moment  later  there 
appeared  just  below  the  Taube  a  sudden  splotch 
of  white,  like  one  of  those  powder-pufFs  that 
women  carry.  From  the  opposite  side  of  the 
town  another  anti-aircraft  gun  began  to  bark 
defiance,  until  soon  the  aerial  intruder  was 
ringed  about  b}'  wisps  of  fleecy  smoke.  At  one 
time  I  counted  as  many  as  forty  of  them,  look- 
ing like  white  tufts  on  a  coverlet  of  turquoise 
blue.  Things  were  getting  too  hot  for  the 
German,  and  with  a  beautiful  sweep  he  swung 
about,  and  went  sailing  down  the  wind,  con- 
tent to  wait  until  a  more  favorable  oppor- 
tunit}'  should  offer. 

The  inhabitants  of  these  Alsatian  towns 
have  become  so  accustomed  to  visits  from  Ger- 
man airmen  that  they  pay  scarcely  more  at- 
tention to  them  than  they  do  to  thunder- 
storms, going  indoors  to  avoid  the  bombs 
just  as  they  go  indoors  to  avoid  the  rain. 
I  remarked,  indeed,  as  I  motored  through  the 
country,  that  nearly  every  town  through  which 
we  passed  showed  evidences,  either  by  shat- 
tered roofs  or  shrapnel-spattered  walls,  of 
aeroplane  bombardment.  Thus  is  the  war 
brought   home   to   those  who,   dwelling   many 


104  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

miles  from  the  line  of  battle,  might  naturally 
suppose  themselves  safe  from  harm.  In  those 
towns  which  are  within  range  of  the  German 
guns  the  inhabitants  are  in  double  danger, 
yet  the  shops  and  schools  are  open,  and  the 
townspeople  go  about  their  business  appar- 
ently wholly  unmindful  of  the  possibiUty  that 
a  shell  may  drop  in  on  them  at  any  moment. 
In  St.  Die  we  stopped  for  lunch  at  the  Hotel 
Terminus,  which  is  just  opposite  the  railway- 
station.  St.  Die  is  within  easy  range  of  the 
German  guns — or  was  when  I  was  there — and 
when  the  Germans  had  nothing  better  to  do 
they  shelled  it,  centring  their  fire,  as  is  their 
custom,  upon  the  railway-station,  so  as  to  in- 
terfere as  much  as  possible  with  traffic  and  the 
movement  of  troops.  The  station  and  the  ad- 
jacent buildings  looked  like  cardboard  boxes 
in  which  with  a  lead-pencil  somebody  had 
jabbed  many  ragged  holes.  The  hotel,  despite 
its  upper  floor  having  been  wrecked  by  shell- 
fire  only  a  few  days  previously,  was  open  and 
doing  business.  Ranged  upon  the  mantel  of 
the  dining-room  was  a  row  of  German  77-milli- 
metre shells,  polished  until  you  could  see  your 
face  in  them.     "Where  did  you  get  those?" 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES    105 

I  asked  the  woman  who  kept  the  hotel.  "Those 
are  some  German  shells  that  fell  in  the  garden 
during  the  last  bombardment,  and  didn't 
explode,"  she  answered  carelessly.  "I  had 
them  unloaded — the  man  w^ho  did  it  made 
an  awful  fuss  about  it,  too — and  I  use  them 
for  hot-water  bottles.  Sometimes  it  gets  pretty- 
cold  here  at  night,  and  it's  very  comforting 
to  have  a  nice  hot  shell  in  your  bed." 

From  St.  Die  to  Le  Rudlin,  where  the  road 
ends,  is  in  the  neighborhood  of  thirty  miles, 
and  we  did  it  in  not  much  over  thirty  minutes. 
We  went  so  fast  that  the  telegraph-poles  looked 
like  the  palings  in  a  picket  fence,  and  we  took 
the  corners  on  two  wheels — doubtless  to  save 
rubber.  Of  one  thing  I  am  quite  certain:  if  I 
am  killed  in  this  war,  it  is  not  going  to  be  by 
a  shell  or  a  bullet;  it  is  going  to  be  in  a  mili- 
tary motor-car.  No  cars  save  military  ones 
are  permitted  on  the  roads  in  the  zone  of 
operations,  and  for  the  military  cars  no  speed 
limits  exist.  As  a  result,  the  drivers  tear 
through  the  country  as  though  they  were  in 
the  Vanderbilt  Cup  Race.  Sometimes,  of 
course,  a  wheel  comes  off,  or  they  meet  another 
vehicle    when    going    round    a    corner    at    full 


io6  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

speed — and  the  next  morning  there  is  a  mili- 
tary funeral.  To  be  the  driver  of  a  military- 
car  in  the  zone  of  operations  is  the  joy-rider's 
dream  come  true.  The  soldier  who  drove  my 
car  steered  with  one  hand  because  he  had  to 
use  the  other  to  illustrate  the  stories  of  his  ex- 
ploits in  the  trenches.  Despite  the  fact  that 
we  were  on  a  mountain  road,  one  side  of  which 
dropped  away  into  nothingness,  when  he  re- 
lated the  story  of  how  he  captured  six  Germans 
single-handed  he  took  both  hands  off  the  wheel 
to  tell  about  it.  It  would  have  made  Barney 
Oldfield's  hair  permanently  pompadour. 

At  Le  Rudlin,  where  there  is  an  outpost  of 
Alpine  chasseurs,  we  left  the  car,  and  mounted 
mules  for  the  ascent  of  the  Hautes  ChaumeSy  or 
High  Moors,  which  crown  the  summit  of  the 
Vosges.  Along  this  ridge  ran  the  imaginary 
line  which  Bismarck  made  the  boundary  be- 
tween Germany  and  France.  Each  mule  was 
led  by  a  soldier,  whose  short  blue  tunic,  scarlet 
breeches,  blue  puttees,  rakish  blue  hereto  and 
rifle  slung  hunter-fashion  across  his  back,  made 
him  look  uncommonly  like  a  Spanish  brigand, 
while  another  soldier  hung  to  the  mule's  tail  to 
keep  him  on  the  path,  which  is  as  narrow  and 


t'rum  a  phutoamih  by  Mfuri'r. 

What  ihc  Germans  did  lo  the  church  at  Ribecourt. 


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CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES    107 

slippery  as  the  path  of  virtue.  Have  you  ever 
ridden  the  trail  which  leads  from  the  rim  of  the 
Grand  Canyon  down  to  the  Colorado  ?  Yes  ? 
Well,  the  trail  which  we  took  up  to  the  Ilautes 
Chaumes  was  in  places  like  that,  only  more  so. 
Yet  over  that  and  similar  trails  has  passed  an 
army  of  invasion,  carr3'ing  with  it,  either  on 
the  backs  of  mules  or  on  the  backs  of  men,  its 
guns,  food,  and  ammunition,  and  sending  back 
in  like  fashion  its  wounded.  Reaching  the 
summit,  the  trail  debouched  from  the  dense 
pine  forest  onto  an  open,  wind-swept  moor. 
Dotting  the  backbone  of  the  ridge,  far  as  the 
eye  could  see,  ran  a  line  of  low  stone  boundary 
posts.  On  one  side  of  each  post  was  carved 
the  letter  F.  On  the  other,  the  eastern  face, 
was  the  letter  D.  Is  it  necessary  to  say  that 
F  stood  for  France  and  D  for  Deutschland  1 
Squatting  beside  one  of  the  posts  was  a  French 
soldier  busily  engaged  with  hammer  and  chisel 
in  cutting  away  the  D.  "It  will  not  be  needed 
again,"  he  explained,  grinning. 

Leaving  the  mules  in  the  shelter  of  the  wood, 
we  proceeded  across  the  open  tableland  which 
crowns  the  summit  of  the  ridge  on  foot,  for, 
being  now  within  both  sight  and  range  of  the 


io8  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

German  batteries,  there  seemed  no  object  In 
attracting  more  attention  to  ourselves  than  was 
absolutely  necessary.  Half  a  mile  or  so  beyond 
the  boundary  posts  the  plateau  suddenly  fell 
away  in  a  sheer  precipice,  a  thin  screen  of  bushes 
bordering  its  brink.  The  topographical  officer 
who  had  assumed  the  direction  of  the  expedi- 
tion at  Le  Rudlin  motioned  me  to  come  for- 
ward. "Have  a  look,"  said  he,  "but  be  careful 
not  to  show  yourself  or  to  shake  the  bushes, 
or  the  Boches  may  send  us  a  shell."  Cau- 
tiously I  peered  through  an  opening  in  the 
branches.  The  mountain  slope  below  me,  al- 
most at  the  foot  of  the  cliff  on  which  I  stood, 
was  scarred  across  by  two  great  undulating 
yellow  ridges.  In  places  they  were  as  much  as  a 
thousand  yards  apart,  in  others  barely  ten.  I 
did  not  need  to  be  told  what  they  were.  I 
knew.  The  ridge  higher  up  the  slope  marked 
the  line  of  the  French  trenches;  the  lower  that 
of  the  German.  From  them  came  an  incessant 
crackle  and  splutter  which  sounded  like  a  forest 
fire.  Sometimes  it  would  die  down  until  only 
an  occasional  shot  would  punctuate  the  moun- 
tain silence,  and  then,  apparently  without 
cause,  it  would  rise  into  a  clatter  which  sounded 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES     109 

like  an  army  of  carpenters  shingling  a  roof.  In 
the  forests  on  either  side  of  us  batteries  were 
at  work  steadily,  methodically,  and,  though  we 
could  not  see  the  guns,  the  frequent  fountains 
of  earth  thrown  up  along  both  Hnes  of  trenches 
by  bursting  shells  showed  how  heavy  was  the 
bombardment  that  was  in  progress,  and  how 
accurate  was  both  the  French  and  German  fire. 
We  were  watching  what  the  official  communique 
described  the  next  day  as  the  fighting  on  the 
Fecht  ver}'  much  as  one  would  watch  a  football 
game  from  the  upper  row  of  seats  in  the  Har- 
vard stadium.  Above  the  forest  at  our  right 
swayed  a  French  observation  balloon,  tugging 
impatiently  at  its  rope,  while  the  observer, 
glasses  glued  to  his  eyes,  telephoned  to  the 
commander  of  the  battery  in  the  wood  below 
him  where  his  shells  were  hitting.  Suddenly, 
from  the  French  position  just  below  me,  there 
rose,  high  above  the  duotone  of  rifle  and  artil- 
lery fire,  the  shrill  clatter  of  a  quick-firer.  Rat- 
tat-tat-tat-tat-tat  it  went,  for  all  the  world  like 
one  of  those  machines  which  they  use  for  rivet- 
ing steel  girders.  And,  when  you  come  to  think 
about  it,  that  is  what  it  was  doing:  riveting 
the  bonds  which  bind  Alsace  to  France. 


no  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  the  French  army 
has  been  opposed,  and  in  many  instances  be- 
trayed, by  the  people  whom  they  thought  they 
were  Hberating  from  the  German  yoke,  and  that 
consequently  the  feeling  of  the  French  soldiers 
for  the  Alsatians  is  very  bitter.  This  assertion 
is  not  true.  I  talked  with  a  great  many  people 
during  my  stay  in  Alsace — with  the  maires  of 
towns,  with  shopkeepers,  with  peasant  farmers, 
and  with  village  priests — and  I  found  that  they 
welcomed  the  French  as  wholeheartedly  as  a 
citizen  who  hears  a  burglar  in  his  house  wel- 
comes a  policeman.  I  saw  old  men  and  women 
who  had  dwelt  in  Alsace  before  the  Germans 
came,  and  who  had  given  up  all  hope  of  seeing 
the  beloved  tricolor  flying  again  above  Alsatian 
soil,  standing  at  the  doors  of  their  cottages, 
with  tears  coursing  down  their  cheeks,  while  the 
endless  columns  of  soldiery  in  the  familiar  uni- 
form tramped  by.  In  the  schoolhouses  of  Al- 
sace I  saw  French  soldiers  patiently  teaching 
children  of  French  blood,  who  have  been  born 
under  German  rule  and  educated  under  Ger- 
man schoolmasters,  the  meaning  of  "  Liberte, 
Egalite,  Fraternite,"  and  that  p-a-t-r-i-e  spells 
France. 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES     iii 

The  change  from  Teutonic  to  Gallic  rule  is, 
however,  by  no  means  welcomed  by  all  Alsa- 
tians. The  Alsatians  of  to-day,  remember, 
are  not  the  Alsatians  of  1870.  It  has  been  the 
consistent  policy  of  the  German  Government 
to  encourage  and,  where  necessary,  to  assist 
German  farmers  to  settle  in  Alsace,  and  as  the 
years  passed  and  the  old  hatred  died  down, 
these  newcomers  intermarried  with  the  old 
French  stock,  so  that  to-day  there  are  thou- 
sands of  the  younger  generation  in  whose  veins 
flow  both  French  and  German  blood,  and  who 
scarcely  know  themselves  to  whom  their  alle- 
giance belongs.  As  a  result  of  this  peculiar 
condition,  both  the  French  and  German  mili- 
tary authorities  have  to  be  constantly  on  their 
guard  against  treachery,  for  a  woman  bearing 
a  French  name  may  well  be  of  German  birth, 
while  a  man  who  speaks  nothing  but  German 
may,  nevertheless,  be  of  pure  French  extrac- 
tion. Hence  spies,  both  French  and  German, 
abound.  If  the  French  Intelligence  Depart- 
ment is  well  served,  so  is  that  of  German}'. 
Peasants  working  in  the  fields,  petty  trades- 
men in  the  towns,  women  of  social  position, 
and  other  women  whose  virtue  is  as  easy  as 


112  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

an  old  shoe,  Germans  dressed  as  priests,  as 
hospital  attendants,  as  Red  Cross  nurses, 
sometimes  in  French  uniforms  and  travelling 
in  motor-cars  with  all  the  necessary  papers — 
all  help  to  keep  the  German  military  authori- 
ties informed  of  what  is  going  on  behind  the 
French  lines.  Sometimes  they  signal  by  means 
of  lamps,  or  by  raising  and  lowering  the  shade 
of  a  lighted  room  of  some  lonely  farmhouse; 
sometimes  by  means  of  cunningly  concealed 
telephone  wires;  occasionally  by  the  fashion 
in  which  the  family  washing  is  arranged  upon 
a  line  within  range  of  German  telescopes,  inno- 
cent-looking red-flannel  petticoats,  blue-Hnen 
blouses,  and  white  undergarments  being  used 
instead  of  signal-flags  to  spell  out  messages  in 
code.  A  plough  with  a  white  or  gray  horse 
has  more  than  once  indicated  the  position  of 
a  French  battery  to  the  German  airmen.  The 
movements  of  a  flock  of  sheep,  driven  by  a  spy 
disguised  as  a  peasant,  has  sometimes  given 
similar  information.  On  one  occasion  three 
German  officers  in  a  motor-car  managed  to  get 
right  through  the  British  lines  in  Flanders. 
Two  of  them  were  disguised  as  French  officers, 
who  were  supposed  to  be  bringing  back  the 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES    113 

third  as  a  prisoner,  he  being,  of  course,  in 
German  uniform.  So  clever  and  daring  was 
their  scheme  that  they  succeeded  in  getting 
close  to  British  headquarters  before  they  were 
detected  and  captured.  They  are  no  cowards 
who  do  this  sort  of  work.  They  know  perfectly 
well  what  it  means  if  they  are  caught:  sun- 
rise, a  wall,  and  a  firing-party. 

From  the  H antes  Chaumes  we  descended  by 
a  very  steep  and  perilous  path  to  the  Lac  Noir, 
where  a  battalion  of  Alpine  chasseurs  had  built 
a  cantonment  at  which  we  spent  the  night. 
The  Lac  Noir,  or  Black  Lake,  occupies  the 
crater  of  an  extinct  volcano,  whose  rocky  sides 
are  so  smooth  and  steep  that  it  looks  like  a 
gigantic  washtub,  in  which  a  weary  Hercules 
might  wash  the  clothing  of  the  world.  There 
were  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  thousand  chas- 
seurs in  camp  on  the  shores  of  the  Lac  Noir 
when  I  was  there,  the  chef  de  brigade  having 
been,  until  the  beginning  of  the  war,  military 
adviser  to  the  President  of  China.  The  amaz- 
ing democracy  of  the  French  army  was  illus- 
trated by  the  fact  that  his  second  in  command, 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Messimy,  was,  until  the 
change  of  cabinet  which  took  place  after  the 


114  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

battle  of  the  Marne,  minister  of  war.  The 
cantonment — "Black  Lake  City"  Colonel 
Messimy  jokingly  called  it — looked  far  more 
like  a  summer  camp  in  the  Adirondacks  than 
a  soldiers'  camp  in  Alsace.  All  the  buildings 
were  of  logs,  their  roofs  being  covered  with 
masses  of  green  boughs  to  conceal  them  from 
inquisitive  aeroplanes,  and  at  the  back  of  each 
hut,  hollowed  from  the  mountainside,  was  an 
underground  shelter  in  which  the  men  could 
take  refuge  in  case  of  bombardment.  Gravelled 
paths,  sometimes  bordered  with  flowers,  wound 
amid  the  pine-trees;  the  officers'  quarters 
had  broad  verandas,  with  ingeniously  made 
rustic  furniture  upon  them;  the  mess-tables 
were  set  under  leafy  arbors;  there  was  a  swim- 
ming-raft and  a  diving-board,  and  a  sort  of 
rustic  pavilion  known  as  the  "Casino,"  where 
the  men  passed  their  spare  hours  in  playing 
cards  or  danced  to  the  music  of  a  really  excel- 
lent band.  Over  the  doorway  was  a  sign  which 
read:  "The  music  of  the  tambourine  has  been 
replaced  by  the  music  of  the  cannon."  Though 
the  Lac  Noir  was,  when  I  was  there,  within  the 
French  lines,  it  was  within  range  of  the  German 
batteries,  which  shelled  it  almost  daily.     The 


i  ..^  Cl;  :.._: drop  into  the  lake  and  stun  hundreds  of  fish,  whereupon 

the  soldiers  paddle  out  and  gather  them  in. 


llic  iitkl  ihot  ib  liic  biKii'il  for  liic  \tuud  U,  l.ikc  pw.iuwii  ^:i  U;c  ;.hurc  of  the 
lake  and  play  the  Marseillaise. 


On  tlic  l,ac  N'oir. 


The  penalty  for  treason. 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES    115 

slopes  of  the  crater  on  which  the  cantonment 
was  built  are  so  steep,  however,  that  the 
shells  would  miss  the  barracks  altogether, 
dropping  harmlessly  in  the  middle  of  the  little 
lake.  The  ensuing  explosion  would  stun  hun- 
dreds of  fish,  which  would  float  upon  the  sur- 
face of  the  water,  whereupon  the  soldiers  would 
paddle  out  in  a  rickety  flatboat  and  gather 
them  in.  In  fact,  a  German  bombardment 
came  to  mean  that  the  chasseurs  would  have 
fish  for  dinner.  This  daily  bombardment, 
which  usually  began  just  before  sunset,  the 
French  called  the  "Evening  Prayer."  The 
first  shot  was  the  signal  for  the  band  to  take 
position  on  that  shore  of  the  lake  which  could 
not  be  reached  by  the  German  shells,  and  play 
the  Marseillaise,  a  bit  of  irony  which  afforded 
huge  amusement  to  the  French  and  excessive 
irritation  to  the  Germans. 

When  the  history  of  the  campaign  in  the 
Vosges  comes  to  be  written,  a  great  many 
pages  will  have  to  be  devoted  to  recount- 
ing the  exploits  of  the  chasseurs  alpins.  The 
"Blue  Devils,"  as  the  Germans  have  dubbed 
them,  are  the  Highlanders  of  the  French  army, 
being  recruited  from  the  French  slopes  of  the 


ii6  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

Alps  and  the  Pyrenees.  Tough  as  rawhide, 
keen  as  razors,  hard  as  nails,  they  are  the  ideal 
troops  for  mountain  warfare.  They  wear  a 
distinctive  dark-blue  uniform,  and  the  hereto  or 
cap,  of  the  French  Alps,  a  flat-topped,  jaunty 
head-dress  which  is  brother  to  the  tam-o'- 
shanter.  The  frontier  of  Alsace,  from  a  point 
opposite  Strasbourg  to  a  point  opposite  Miil- 
hausen,  follows  the  summit  of  the  Vosges, 
and  over  this  range,  which  in  places  is  upward 
of  four  thousand  feet  in  height,  have  poured 
the  French  armies  of  invasion.  In  the  van  of 
those  armies  have  marched  the  chasseurs  alpins, 
dragging  their  guns  by  hand  up  the  almost 
sheer  precipices,  and  dragging  the  gun-mules 
after  them;  advancing  through  forests  so  dense 
that  they  had  to  chop  paths  for  the  Hne  regi- 
ments which  followed  them;  carrying  by  storm 
the  apparently  impregnable  positions  held  by 
the  Germans;  sleeping  often  without  blankets 
and  with  the  mercury  hovering  near  zero 
on  the  heights  which  they  had  captured;  taking 
their  batteries  into  positions  where  it  was  be- 
lieved no  batteries  could  go;  raining  shells 
from  those  batteries  upon  the  wooded  slopes 
ahead,  and,  under  cover  of  that  fire,  advanc- 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES    117 

ing,  always  advancing.  Think  of  what  It 
meant  to  get  a  great  army  over  such  a  moun- 
tain range  in  the  face  of  desperate  opposition; 
think  of  the  labor  involved  in  transporting  the 
enormous  supplies  of  food,  clothing,  and  am- 
munition required  by  that  army;  think  of 
the  sufferings  of  the  wounded  who  had  to  be 
taken  back  across  those  mountains,  many  of 
them  in  the  depths  of  winter,  sometimes  in 
litters,  sometimes  lashed  to  the  backs  of  mules. 
The  mule,  whether  from  the  Alps,  the  Pyr- 
enees, or  from  Missouri,  is  playing  a  brave 
part  in  this  mountain  warfare,  and  whenever 
I  saw  one  I  felt  like  the  motorist  who,  after  his 
automobile  had  been  hauled  out  of  an  appar- 
ently bottomless  Southern  bog  by  a  negro 
who  happened  to  be  passing  with  a  mule  team, 
said  to  his  son:  *'My  boy,  from  now  on  always 
raise  your  hat  to  a  mule." 

Just  as  the  crimson  disk  of  the  sun  peered 
cautiously  over  the  crater's  rim,  we  bade 
good-by  to  our  friends  the  chasseurs  alpinSy 
and  turned  the  noses  of  our  mules  up  the 
mountains.  As  we  reached  the  summit  of 
the  range,  the  little  French  captain  who  was 
acting  as  our  guide  halted  us  with  a  gesture. 


ii8  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

"Look  over  there,"  he  said,  pointing  to  where, 
far  beyond  the  trench-scarred  hillsides,  a 
great,  broad  valley  was  swimming  in  the  morn- 
ing mists.  There  were  green  squares  which  I 
knew  for  meadow-lands,  and  yellow  squares 
which  were  fields  of  ripening  grain;  here  and 
there  were  clusters  of  white-walled,  red-roofed 
houses,  with  ancient  church-spires  rising  above 
them;  and  winding  down  the  middle  of  the 
plain  was  a  broad  gray  ribbon  which  turned  to 
silver  when  the  sun  struck  upon  it. 

"Look,"  said  the  little  captain  again,  and 
there  was  a  break  in  his  voice.  "That  is  what 
we  are  fighting  for.     That  is  Alsace." 

Then  I  knew  that  I  was  looking  upon  what 
is,  to  every  man  of  Gallic  birth,  the  Promised 
Land;  I  knew  that  the  great,  dim  bulk  which 
loomed  against  the  distant  sky-line  was  the 
Black  Forest;  I  knew  that  somewhere  up  that 
mysterious,  alluring  valley,  Strasbourg  sat  on 
her  hilltop,  like  an  Andromeda  waiting  to  be 
freed;  and  that  the  broad,  silent-flowing  river 
which  I  saw  below  me  was  none  other  than  the 
Rhine. 

And  as  I  looked  I  recalled  another  scene,  on 
another   continent    and    beside   another   river, 


\ 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  VOSGES     119 

two  years  before.  I  was  standing  with  a 
colored  cavalry  sergeant  of  the  border  patrol 
on  the  banks  of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  we  were 
looking  southward  to  where  the  mountains  of 
Chihuahua  rose,  purple,  mysterious,  forbidding, 
grim,  against  the  evening  sky.  On  the  Mexi- 
can side  of  the  river  a  battle  was  in  progress 

"I  suppose,"  I  remarked  to  my  companion, 
"that  you'll  be  mighty  glad  when  orders  come 
to  cross  the  border  and  clean  things  up  over 
there  in  Mexico." 

"Mistah,"  he  answered  earnestly,  "we  ain't 
nevah  gwine  tuh  cross  dat  bodah,  but  one  of 
these  yere  days  wese  a  gwine  tuh  pick  dat 
bodah  up  an'  carry  it  right  down  to  Panama." 

And  that  is  what  the  French  are  doing  in 
Alsace.  They  have  not  crossed  the  border,  but 
they  have  picked  the  border  up,  and  are  car- 
rying it  right  down  to  the  banks  of  the  Rhine. 


IV 
THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE 

WHEN  I  asked  the  general  commanding 
the  armies  operating  in  Alsace  for 
permission  to  visit  the  fire-trenches, 
I  did  it  merely  as  a  matter  of  form.  I  was  quite 
prepared  to  be  met  with  a  polite  but  firm  re- 
fusal, for  it  is  as  difficult  to  get  into  the  French 
trenches  as  it  is  to  get  behind  the  scenes  of  a 
Broadway  theatre  on  the  first  night  of  a  big 
production.  This,  understand,  is  not  from  any 
solicitude  for  your  safety,  but  because  a  fire- 
trench  is  usually  a  very  busy  place  indeed,  and 
a  visitor  is  apt  to  get  in  the  way  and  make  him- 
self a  nuisance  generally.  Imagine  my  aston- 
ishment, then,  when  the  general  said,  "Cer- 
tainly, if  you  wish,"  just  as  though  he  were 
giving  me  permission  to  visit  his  stables  or  his 
gardens.  I  might  add  that  almost  every  cor- 
respondent who  has  succeeded  in  getting  to 
the  French  front  has  been  taken,  with  a  vast 

I20 


THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     121 

Y 

deal  of  ceremony  and  precaution,  into  a  trench 
of  some  sort,  thus  giving  him  an  experience  to 
tell  about  all  the  rest  of  his  life,  but  those  who 
have  been  permitted  to  visit  the  actual  fire- 
trenches  might  almost  be  numbered  on  one's 
fingers.  In  this  respect  the  French  have  been 
much  less  accommodating  than  the  Belgians  or 
the  Germans,  The  fire,  or  first-line,  trench,  is 
the  one  nearest  the  enemy,  and  both  from  it 
and  against  it  there  is  almost  constant  firing. 
The  difference  between  a  second-line,  or  reserve, 
trench,  and  a  fire-trench  is  the  difference  be- 
tw^een  sitting  in  a  comfortable  orchestra  stall 
and  in  being  on  the  stage  and  a  part  of  the 
show. 

Before  they  took  me  out  to  the  trenches 
we  lunched  in  Dannemarie,  or,  as  it  used  to 
be  known  under  German  rule,  Dammerkirch. 
Though  the  town  was  within  easy  range  of  the 
German  guns,  and  was  shelled  by  them  on  oc- 
casion, the  motto  of  the  townsfolk  seemed  to 
be  "business  as  usual,"  for  the  shops  were  busy 
and  the  schools  were  open.  We  had  lunch  at 
the  local  inn:  it  began  with  fresh  lobster,  fol- 
lowed by  omelette  au  fromagey  spring  lamb,  and 
asparagus,  and  ended  with  strawberries,  and  it 


122  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

cost  me  sixty  cents,  wine  included.  From 
which  you  will  gather  that  the  people  behind 
the  French  lines  are  not  suffering  for  food. 

Just  outside  Dannemarie  the  railway  crosses 
the  River  111  by  three  tremendous  viaducts 
eighty  feet  in  height.  When,  early  in  the  war, 
the  Germans  fell  back  before  the  impetuous 
French  advance,  they  effectually  stopped  rail- 
way traffic  by  blowing  up  one  of  these  viaducts 
behind  them.  Urged  by  the  railway  company, 
which  preferred  to  have  the  government  foot 
the  bill,  the  viaduct  was  rebuilt  by  the  French 
military  authorities,  and  a  picture  of  the  cere- 
mony which  marked  its  inauguration  by  the 
Minister  of  War  was  published  in  one  of  the 
Paris  illustrated  papers.  The  jubilation  of  the 
French  was  a  trifle  premature,  however,  for  a 
few  days  later  the  Germans  moved  one  of  their 
monster  siege-guns  into  position  and,  at  a  range 
of  eighteen  miles,  sent  over  a  shell  which  again 
put  the  viaduct  out  of  commission.  That  ex- 
plains, perhaps,  why  the  censorship  is  so  strict 
on  pictures  taken  in  the  zone  of  operations. 

Dannemarie  is  barely  ten  miles  from  that 
point  where  the  French  and  German  trenches, 
after  zigzagging  across  more  than  four  hundred 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     123 

miles  of  European  soil,  come  to  an  abrupt  end 
against  the  frontier  of  Switzerland.  The  Swiss, 
who  are  taking  no  chances  of  having  the  viola- 
tion of  Belgium  repeated  with  their  own  coun- 
try for  the  victim,  have  at  this  point  massed  a 
heavy  force  of  extremeh'  businesslike-looking 
troops,  the  frontier  is  marked  by  a  line  of  wire 
entanglements,  and  a  military  zone  has  been 
established,  civilians  not  being  permitted  to 
approach  within  a  mile  or  more  of  the  border. 
When  I  was  in  that  region  the  French  officers 
gave  a  dinner  to  the  officers  in  command  of  the 
Swiss  frontier  force  opposite  them.  That  there 
might  be  no  embarrassing  breaches  of  neutral- 
ity the  table  was  set  exactly  on  the  international 
boundary,  so  that  the  Swiss  officers  sat  in  Swit- 
zerland, and  the  French  officers  sat  in  France. 
One  of  the  amusing  incidents  of  the  war  was 
when  the  French  "put  one  over"  on  the  Ger- 
mans at  the  beginning  of  hostilities  in  this 
region.  Taking  advantage  of  a  sharp  angle  in 
the  contour  of  the  Swiss  frontier,  the  French 
posted  one  of  their  batteries  in  such  a  posi- 
tion, that  though  it  could  sweep  the  German 
trenches,  it  was  so  close  to  the  border  that 
whenever  the  German  guns  replied  their  shells 


124  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

fell  on  Swiss  soil,  and  an  international  incident 
was  created. 

The  trenches  in  front  of  Altkirch,  and  indeed 
throughout  Alsace,  are  flanked  by  patches  of 
dense  woods,  and  it  is  in  these  woods  that  the 
cantonments  for  the  men  are  built,  and  amid 
their  leafy  recesses  that  the  soldiers  spend  their 
time  when  off  duty  in  sleeping,  smoking,  and 
card-playing.     Though    the   German    batteries 
periodically  rake  the  woods  with  shell-fire,  it  is 
an  almost  total  waste  of  ammunition,  for  the 
men  simply  retreat  to  the  remarkable  under- 
ground cities  which  they  have  constructed,  and 
stay  there  until  the  shell-storm  is  over.     The 
troglodyte  habitations  which  have  come  into 
existence  along  the  entire  length  of  the  western 
battle-front  are  perhaps  the  most  curious  prod- 
ucts of  this  siege  warfare.     In  these  dwellings 
burrowed  out  of  the  earth  the  soldiers  of  France 
live  as  the  cavemen  lived  before  the  dawn  of 
civilization.    A  dozen  to  twenty  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  and  so  strongly  roofed 
over  with  logs  and  earth  as  to  render  their  oc- 
cupants safe  from  the  most  torrential  rain  of 
high  explosive,  I  was  shown  rooms  with  sleep- 
ing-quarters for  a  hundred  men  apiece,  black- 


3 

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THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     125 

smith  and  carpenter  shops,  a  recreation  room 
where  the  men  lounged  and  smoked  and  read 
the  papers  and  wrote  to  the  folks  at  home,  a 
telegraph  station,  a  telephone  exchange  from 
which  one  could  talk  with  any  section  of  the 
trenches,  with  division  headquarters,  or  with 
Paris;  a  bathing  establishment  with  hot  and 
cold  water  and  shower-baths;  a  barber  shop — 
all  with  board  floors,  free  from  dampness,  and 
surprisingly  clean.  The  trenches  and  passage- 
ways connecting  these  underground  dwellings 
were  named  and  marked  like  city  streets — the 
Avenue  Joffre,  the  Avenue  Foch,  the  Rue  des 
Victoires — and  many  of  them  were  electric- 
lighted.  The  bedroom  of  an  artillery  officer, 
twenty  feet  underground,  had  its  walls  and  ceil- 
ing covered  with  flowered  cretonne — heaven 
knows  where  he  got  it ! — and  the  tiny  windows 
of  the  division  commander's  headquarters, 
though  they  gave  only  on  a  wall  of  yellow  mud, 
were  hung  with  dainty  muslin  curtains — evi- 
dently the  work  of  a  woman's  loving  fingers. 
In  one  place  a  score  of  steps  led  down  to  a 
passageway  whose  mud  walls  were  so  close  to- 
gether that  I  brushed  one  with  either  elbow 
as   I    passed.     On   this   subterranean   corridor 


126  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

doors — real  doors — opened.  One  of  these  doors 
led  into  an  officer's  sitting-room.  The  floor  and 
walls  were  covered  with  planed  wood  and 
there  was  even  an  attempt  at  polish.  The 
rustic  furniture  was  excellently  made.  Beside 
the  bed  was  a  telephone  and  an  electric-light, 
and  on  a  rude  table  was  a  brass  shell-case  filled 
with  wild  flowers.  On  the  walls  the  occupant 
had  tacked  pictures  of  his  wife  and  children 
in  a  pitiful  attempt  to  make  this  hole  in  the 
ground  look  "homelike." 

But  don't  get  the  idea,  from  anything  that  I 
have  said,  that  life  in  the  trenches  is  anything 
more  than  endurable.  Two  words  describe  it: 
misery  and  muck.  War  is  not  only  fighting,  as 
many  people  seem  to  think.  Bronchitis  is  more 
deadly  than  bullets.  Pneumonia  does  more 
harm  than  poison  gas.  Shells  are  less  dangerous 
than  lack  of  sanitation.  To  be  attacked  by 
strange  and  terrible  diseases;  to  stand  day  after 
day,  week  after  week,  between  walls  of  oozy 
mud  and  amid  seas  of  slime;  to  be  eaten  alive 
by  vermin;  to  suff'er  the  intolerable  irritation 
of  the  itch;  to  be  caked  with  mud  and  filth;  to 
go  for  weeks  and  perhaps  for  months  with  no 
opportunity  to  bathe;  to  be  so  foul  of  person 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     127 

that  )'ou  are  an  offense  to  all  who  come  near — 
such  are  the  real  horrors  of  the  trench. 

Yet,  when  the  circumstances  are  taken  into 
consideration,  the  French  soldier  is  admirably 
cared  for.  His  health  is  carefully  looked  after. 
He  is  well  fed,  well  clothed,  and,  following 
the  policy  of  conserving  by  every  possible 
means  the  lives  of  the  men,  he  is  afforded 
every  protection  that  human  ingenuity  can 
devise.  The  kepi  has  been  replaced  by  the 
trench-helmet,  a  light  casque  of  blued  steel, 
which  will  protect  a  man's  brain-pan  from 
shell-splinter,  shrapnel,  or  grenade,  and  which 
has  saved  many  a  man's  Hfe.  Rather  a  re- 
markable thing,  is  it  not,  that  the  French  sol- 
dier of  to-day  should  adopt  a  head-dress  almost 
identical  with  the  casque  worn  by  his  ancestor, 
the  French  man-at-arms  of  the  Middle  Ages .? 
I  am  convinced  that  it  is  this  policy  of  conserv- 
ing the  lives  of  her  fighting  men  which  is  going 
to  win  the  war  for  France.  If  necessity  de- 
mands that  a  position  be  taken  with  the  bay- 
onet, no  soldiers  in  the  world  sacrifice  them- 
selves more  freely  than  the  French,  but  the 
military  authorities  have  realized  that  men, 
unlike  shells,  cannot  be  replaced.     "The  dura- 


128  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

tion  and  the  outcome  of  the  war,"  General  de 
Maud'huy  remarked  to  me,  ''depends  upon 
how  fast  we  can  kill  off  the  Germans.  Their 
army  has  reached  its  maximum  strength,  and 
every  day  sees  it  slowly  but  surely  weakening. 
Our  game,  therefore,  is  to  kill  as  many  as  pos- 
sible of  the  enemy  while  at  the  same  time 
saving  our  own  men.  It  is,  after  all,  a  purely 
mathematical  proposition." 

I  believe  that  the  losses  incidental  to  trench 
warfare,  as  it  is  being  conducted  in  Alsace, 
have  been  considerably  exaggerated.  The  of- 
ficer in  command  of  the  French  positions  in 
front  of  Altkirch  told  me  that,  during  the 
construction  of  some  of  the  trenches,  the  Ger- 
mans rained  twelve  thousand  shells  upon  the 
working  parties,  yet  not  a  man  was  killed 
and  only  ten  were  wounded.  The  modern 
trench  is  so  ingeniously  constructed  that,  even 
in  the  comparatively  rare  event  of  a  shell 
dropping  squarely  into  it,  only  the  soldiers  in 
the  immediate  vicinity,  seldom  more  than 
half  a  dozen  at  the  most,  are  injured,  the  others 
being  protected  from  the  flying  steel  by  the 
traverses,  earthen  walls  which  partially  in- 
tersect the  trench  at  intervals  of  a  few  yards. 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     129 

In  the  trench  one  has  only  to  keep  one's  head 
down,  and  he  is  nearly  as  safe  as  though  he 
were  at  home.  To  crouch,  to  move  bowed, 
to  keep  always  the  parapet  between  your  head 
and  the  German  riflemen,  becomes  an  instinct, 
like  the  lock-step  which  used  to  be  the  rule  for 
the  convicts  at  Sing  Sing. 

So  cleverly  have  the  French  engineers  taken 
advantage  of  the  configuration  of  the  country 
in  front  of  Altkirch,  that  we  were  able  to  enter 
the  boyaux,  or  communication  trenches,  without 
leaving  the  shelter  of  the  wood.  Half  an  hour's 
brisk  walking  through  what  would,  in  times  of 
peace,  be  called  a  ditch,  perhaps  three  feet 
wide  and  seven  deep,  its  earthen  walls  kept 
in  place  by  wattles  of  woven  willows,  and  with 
as  many  twists  and  turns  as  the  maze  at  Hamp- 
ton Court,  brought  us  at  last  into  the  fire- 
trenches.  These  were  considerably  roomier 
than  the  boyaux,  being  in  places  six  feet  wide 
and  having  a  sort  of  raised  step  or  platform  of 
earth,  on  which  the  men  stood  to  fire,  running 
along  the  side  nearest  the  enemy.  Each  soldier 
was  protected  by  a  steel  shield  about  the  size 
of  a  newspaper,  and  painted  a  lead-gray,  set 
in  the  earth  of  the  parapet.     In  the  centre  of 


I30  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

the  shield  is  cut  an  opening  slightly  larger  than 
a  playing-card,  through  which  the  soldier 
pokes  his  rifle  when  he  wishes  to  fire,  and  which, 
when  not  in  use,  is  screened  by  a  steel  shutter 
or  a  cloth  curtain,  so  that  the  riflemen  in  the 
German  trench  cannot  see  any  one  who  may 
happen  to  pass  behind  it.  At  intervals  of  five 
or  six  yards  men  were  on  watch,  with  their 
rifles  laid.  Their  instructions  are  never  to 
take  their  eyes  off  the  enemy's  trenches,  a 
shout  from  them  bringing  their  comrades 
tumbHng  out  of  their  dug-outs  just  as  firemen 
respond  to  the  clang  of  the  fire-gong.  When 
the  men  come  rushing  out  of  the  shelters  they 
have,  in  the  earthen  platform,  a  good  steady 
footing  which  will  bring  their  heads  level  with 
the  parapet,  where  their  rifles,  leaning  against 
the  steel  shields,  await  them.  It  is  planned 
to  always  keep  a  sufficient  force  in  the  fire- 
trenches,  so  that,  roughly  speaking,  there  will 
be  a  man  to  every  yard,  which  is  about  as  close 
as  they  can  fight  to  advantage.  Every  thirty 
yards  or  so,  in  a  log-roofed  shelter  known  as 
a  gun-pit,  is  a  machine-gun,  though  in  the 
German  trenches  it  is  not  at  all  uncommon  to 
find  a  machine-gun  to  every  fifteen  men. 


THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     131 

As  we  passed  through  the  trenches  I  noticed 
at  intervals  of  a  hundred  yards  or  so  men, 
standing  motionless  as  statues,  who  seemed  to 
be  intently  listening.  And  that,  I  found,  was 
precisely  w^hat  they  were  doing.  In  this  trench 
warfare  men  are  specially  told  off  to  listen,  both 
above  and  beneath  the  ground,  for  any  sapping 
or  mining  operations  on  the  part  of  the  enemy. 
Without  this  precaution  there  would  be  the  con- 
stant danger  of  the  Germans  driving  a  tunnel 
under  the  French  trenches  (or  vice  versa)  and, 
by  means  of  a  mine,  blowing  those  trenches  and 
the  men  in  them  into  the  air.  Indeed,  scarcely 
a  night  passes  that  soldiers,  armed  with  knives 
and  pistols,  do  not  crawl  out  on  hands  and 
knees  between  the  trenches  in  order  to  find  out, 
by  holding  the  ear  to  the  ground,  whether  the 
enemy  is  sapping.  Should  the  listener  hear 
the  muffled  sounds  which  would  suggest  that 
the  enemy  was  driving  a  mine,  he  tells  it  in  a 
whisper  to  his  companion,  who  crawls  back  to 
his  own  trenches  with  the  message,  whereupon 
the  engineers  immediately  take  steps  to  start  a 
counter-mine. 

''Look  through  here,"  said  the  intelligence 
officer  who  was  acting  as  my  guide,  indicating 


132  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

the  port-hole  in  one  of  the  steel  shields,  "but 
don't  stay  too  long  or  a  German  sharpshooter 
may  spot  you.  A  second  is  long  enough  to 
get  a  bullet  through  the  brain."  Cautiously 
applying  my  eye  to  the  opening,  I  saw,  per- 
haps a  hundred  yards  away,  a  long,  low 
mound  of  earth,  such  as  would  be  thrown  up 
from  a  sewer  excavation,  and  dotting  it  at 
three-foot  intervals  darker  patches  which  I 
knew  to  be  just  such  steel  shields  as  the  one 
behind  which  I  was  sheltered.  And  I  knew 
that  behind  each  one  of  those  steel  shields 
was  standing  a  keen-eyed  rifleman  searching 
for  something  suspicious  at  which  to  fire.  Im- 
mediately in  front  of  the  German  trench,  just 
as  in  front  of  the  trench  in  which  I  stood,  a 
forest  of  stout  stakes  had  been  driven  deep 
into  the  ground,  and  draped  between  these 
stakes  were  countless  strands  of  barbed  wire, 
so  snarled  and  tangled,  and  interlaced  and 
woven  that  a  cat  could  not  have  gotten  through 
unscratched.  Between  the  two  lines  of  entan- 
glements stretched  a  field  of  ripening  wheat, 
streaked  here  and  there  with  patches  of  scarlet 
poppies.  There  were  doubtless  other  things 
besides  poppies  amid  that  wheat,  but,  thank 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     133 

God,  it  was  high  enough  to  hide  them.  Rising 
from  the  wheatfield,  almost  midway  between 
the  French  and  German  Hnes,  was  a  soHtary 
apple-tree.  "Behind  that  tree,"  whispered  the 
officer  standing  beside  me — for  some  reason 
they  always  speak  in  hushed  tones  in  the 
trenches — "is  a  German  outpost.  He  crawls 
out  every  morning  before  sunrise  and  is  re- 
Heved  at  dark.  Though  some  of  our  men  keep 
their  rifles  constantly  laid  on  the  tree,  we've 
never  been  able  to  get  him.  Still,  he's  not  a 
very  good  life-insurance  risk,  eh?"  And  I 
agreed  that  he  certainly  was  not. 

I  must  have  remained  at  my  loophole  a  little 
too  long  or  possibly  some  movement  of  mine 
attracted  the  attention  of  a  German  sniper,  for 
pang  came  a  bullet  against  the  shield  behind 
which  I  was  standing,  with  the  same  ringing, 
metallic  sound  which  a  bullet  makes  when  it 
hits  the  iron  target  in  a  shooting-gallery.  In 
this  case,  however,  /  was  the  bull's-eye.  Had 
that  bullet  been  two  inches  nearer  the  centre 
there  would  have  been,  in  the  words  of  the  poet, 
"more  work  for  the  undertaker,  another  httle 
job  for  the  casket-maker." 

"Lucky  for  you  that  wasn't  one  of  the  new 


134  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE! 


j> 


armor-piercing  bullets,"  remarked  the  officer 
as  I  hastily  stepped  down.  "After  the  Ger- 
mans introduced  the  steel  shields  we  went  them 
one  better  by  introducing  a  jacketed  bullet 
which  will  go  through  a  sheet  of  armor-plate 
as  though  it  were  made  of  cheese.  We  get 
lots  of  amusement  from  them.  Sometimes  one 
of  our  men  will  fire  a  dozen  rounds  of  ordinary 
ammunition  at  a  shield  behind  which  he  hears 
some  Boches  talking,  and  as  the  bullets  glance 
off  harmlessly  they  laugh  and  jeer  at  him. 
Then  he  slips  in  one  of  the  jacketed  bullets  and 
— whang!!! — ^we  hear  a  wounded  Boche  yelp- 
ing like  a  dog  that  has  been  run  over  by  a 
motor-car.  Funny  thing  about  the  Germans. 
They're  brave  enough — no  one  questions  that 
— but  they  scream  like  animals  when  they're 
wounded." 

From  all  that  I  could  gather,  the  French  did 
not  have  a  particularly  high  opinion  of  the 
quality  of  the  troops  opposed  to  them  in  Al- 
sace, most  of  whom,  at  the  time  I  was  there, 
were  Bavarians  and  Saxons.  An  officer  in  the 
trenches  on  the  Hartmannswillerkopf,  where  the 
French  and  German  positions  were  in  places 
very  close  together,  told  me  that  whenever  the 


THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     135 

Germans  attempted  an  attack  the  French 
trenches  burst  into  so  fierce  a  blast  of  rifle  and 
machine-gun  fire  that  the  men  in  the  spiked 
helmets  refused  to  face  it.  "Vorwarts!  Vor- 
warts!"  the  German  officers  would  scream, 
exposing  themselves  recklessly.  "Nein ! 
Nein!"  the  fear-maddened  men  would  answer 
as  they  broke  and  ran  for  the  shelter  of  their 
trenches.  Then  the  French  would  hear  the  an- 
gry bark  of  automatics  as  the  officers  pistoled 
their  men. 

When  the  French,  in  one  of  the  bloodiest 
and  most  desperate  assaults  of  the  war,  car- 
ried the  summit  of  the  Hartmannswillerkopf 
by  storm,  they  claim  to  have  found  the  German 
machine-gun  crews  chained  to  their  guns  as 
galley-slaves  were  chained  to  their  oars.  French 
artillery  officers  have  repeatedly  told  me  that 
when  German  infantry  advances  to  take  a 
position  by  assault,  the  men  are  frequently 
urged  forward  by  their  own  batteries  raking 
them  from  the  rear.  As  the  German  gunners 
gradually  advance  their  fire  as  the  infantry 
moves  forward,  it  is  as  dangerous  for  the  men 
to  retreat  as  to  go  on.  Hence  it  is  by  no  means 
uncommon,   so   the   French  officers  assert,  for 


136  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

the  German  troops  to  arrive  pell-mell  at  the 
French  trenches,  breathless,  terrified,  hands 
above  their  heads,  seeking  not  a  fight  but  a 
chance  to  surrender. 

One  of  the  assertions  that  you  hear  repeated 
everywhere  along  the  French  lines,  by  officers 
and  men  alike,  is  that  the  German  does  not 
fight  fair,  that  you  cannot  trust  him,  that  he  is 
not  bound  by  any  of  the  recognized  rules  of  the 
game.  Innumerable  instances  have  been  re- 
lated to  me  of  wounded  Germans  attempting 
to  shoot  or  stab  the  French  surgeons  and  nurses 
who  were  caring  for  them.  An  American  serv- 
ing in  the  Foreign  Legion  told  me  that  on  one 
occasion,  when  his  regiment  carried  a  German 
position  by  assault,  the  wounded  Germans  ly- 
ing on  the  ground  waited  until  the  legionaries 
had  passed,  and  then  shot  them  in  the  back. 
Now,  when  the  Foreign  Legion  goes  into  ac- 
tion, each  company  is  followed  by  men  with 
axes,  whose  business  it  is  to  see  that  such  inci- 
dents do  not  happen  again. 

The  reason  for  the  French  soldier's  deep- 
seated  distrust  of  the  German  is  illustrated 
by  a  grim  comedy  of  which  I  heard  when  I  was 
in  Alsace. 


From  a  photograph  by  E.  A.  Ponfll. 


Each  soldier  is  protected  by  a  steel  shield,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  cut  an 
opening  slightly  larger  than  a  playing-card. 


Phoio  h  :.: 

A  "pfiilu"  in  the  \'(imrr». 


llf'fi   I'y    I,.    .1 .    J'u.lr II. 


A  French  soldier  wearing  a  mask 
as  a  protection  against  gas. 


In  the  trenches  in  Alsace. 


a 
a, 

a 

u 
o 


3 
60 

C 
O 


s 
o 


o 

> 

o 
U 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     137 

A  company  of  German  infantry  was  defend- 
ing a  stone-walled  farmstead  on  the  Fecht. 
So  murderous  was  the  fire  of  the  French  bat- 
teries that  soon  a  white  sheet  was  seen  wav- 
ing from  one  of  the  farmhouse  windows.  The 
French  fire  ceased,  and  through  the  gateway 
came  a  group  of  Germans,  holding  their  hands 
above  their  heads  and  shouting:  "Kamerad! 
Kamerad!"  which  has  become  the  euphemism 
for  "I  surrender."  But  when  a  detachment  of 
chasseurs  went  forward  to  take  them  prisoners 
the  Germans  suddenly  dropped  to  the  ground, 
while  from  an  upper  window  in  the  farm- 
house a  hidden  machine-gun  poured  a  stream 
of  lead  into  the  unsuspecting  Frenchmen. 
Thereupon  the  French  batteries  proceeded  to 
transform  that  farmhouse  into  a  sieve.  In  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  the  tablecloth  was  again 
seen  waving,  the  French  guns  again  ceased 
firing,  and  again  the  Germans  came  crowding 
out,  v/ith  their  hands  above  their  heads.  But 
this  time  they  were  stark  naked  !  To  prove 
that  they  had  no  concealed  weapons  they  had 
stripped  to  the  skin.  It  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  add  that  those  Germans  were  not  taken 
prisoners. 


138  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

Though  the  incidents  I  have  above  related 
were  told  me  by  officers  who  claimed  to  have 
witnessed  them,  and  whose  reliability  I  have 
no  reason  to  doubt,  I  do  not  vouch  for  them, 
mind  you;  I  merely  repeat  them  for  what  they 
are  worth. 

I  had,  of  course,  heard  many  stories  of  the 
German  ranks  being  filled  with  boys  and  old 
men,  but  the  large  convoys  of  prisoners  which 
I  saw  in  Alsace  and  in  Champagne  convinced 
me  that  there  is  but  little  truth  in  the  assertion. 
Some  of  the  prisoners,  it  is  true,  looked  as 
though  they  should  have  been  in  high  school, 
and  others  as  though  they  had  been  called  from 
old  soldiers'  homes,  but  these  formed  only  a 
sprinkling  of  the  whole.  By  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  prisoners  that  I  saw  were  men  be- 
tween eighteen  and  forty,  and  they  all  impressed 
me  as  being  in  the  very  pink  of  physical  con- 
dition and  this  despite  the  fact  that  they  were 
dirty  and  hungry  and  very,  very  tired.  But 
they  struck  me  as  being  not  at  all  averse  to 
being  captured.  They  seemed  exhausted  and 
dispirited  and  crushed,  as  though  all  the  fight 
had  gone  out  of  them.  In  those  long  columns 
of  weary,  dirty  men  were  represented  all  the 


THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     139 

Teutonic  types:  arrogant,  supercilious  Prussians; 
strapping  young  peasants  from  the  Silesian 
farm  lands;  tradesmen  and  mechanics  from  the 
great  industrial  centres;  men  from  the  mines  of 
Wiirtemberg  and  the  forests  of  Baden;  scowl- 
ing Bavarians  and  smiling  Saxons.  Among 
them  were  some  brutish  faces,  accentuated, 
no  doubt,  by  the  close-cropped  hair  which 
makes  any  man  look  like  a  convict,  but  the 
countenances  of  most  of  them  were  frank  and 
honest  and  open.  Two  things  aroused  my 
curiosity.  The  first  was  that  I  did  not  see  a 
helmet — a  pickelhauhe — among  them.  When  I 
asked  the  reason  the}^  explained  that  they  had 
been  captured  in  the  fire-trenches,  and  that 
they  seldom  wear  their  helmets  there,  as  the 
little  round  gray  caps  with  the  scarlet  band  are 
less  conspicuous  and  more  comfortable.  The 
other  thing  that  aroused  my  curiosity  was  when 
I  saw  French  soldiers,  each  with  a  pair  of 
scissors,  going  from  prisoner  to  prisoner. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  doing?"  I  asked. 

"We  are  cutting  the  suspenders  of  the 
Boches,"  was  the  answer.  "Their  trousers  are 
made  very  large  around  the  waist  so  that  if 
their   suspenders   are   cut   they   have   to   hold 


I40  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

them  up  with  their  hands,  thus  making  it  diffi- 
cult for  them  to  run  away." 

As  I  looked  at  these  unshaven,  unkempt 
men  in  their  soiled  and  tattered  uniforms,  it 
was  hard  to  make  myself  beheve  that  they 
had  been  a  part  of  that  immaculate,  confident, 
and  triumphant  army  which  I  had  seen  roll 
across  Belgium  like  a  tidal  wave  in  the  late 
summer  of  1914. 

Though  the  French  and  German  positions 
in  Alsace  are  rarely  less  than  a  hundred  yards 
apart  and  usually  considerably  more,  there  is 
one  point  on  the  line,  known  as  La  Fontenelle, 
where,  owing  to  a  pecuHar  rocky  formation, 
the  French  and  German  trenches  are  within  six 
yards  of  each  other.  The  only  reason  one  side 
does  not  blow  up  the  other  by  means  of  mines 
is  because  the  vein  of  rock  which  separates 
them  is  too  hard  to  tunnel  through.  In  cases 
where  the  trenches  are  exceptionally  close  to- 
gether, the  men  have  the  comfort  of  knowing 
that  they  are  at  least  safe  from  shell-fire, 
for,  as  the  battery  commanders  are  perfectly 
aware  that  the  sHghtest  error  in  calculating  the 
range,  or  the  least  deterioration  in  the  rifling  of 


-T 


A  ItciicIi  smoke  buinb. 

The  Frcnth  arc  luinK  these  tmcikc  bombs  to  screen  the  movements  of  troops 
iuit  at  ihc  smoke  from  a  destroyer  screens  the  movements  of  a  battleship. 


o 


o 


u 

C 


o 

vi 
C 


m 


T3 

G 


-a 
c 


THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     141 

the  guns,  would  result  in  their  shells  landing 
among  their  own  men,  they  generally  play 
safe  and  concentrate  their  fire  on  the  enemy's 
second-line  trenches  instead  of  on  the  first- 
line.  The  fighting  in  these  close-up  positions 
has  consequently  degenerated  into  a  warfare 
of  bombs,  hand-grenades,  poison-gas,  burning 
oil,  and  other  methods  reminiscent  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  As  a  protection  against  bombs 
and  hand-grenades,  some  of  the  trenches  which 
I  visited  had  erected  along  their  parapets 
ten-foot-high  screens  of  wire  netting,  like  the 
back  nets  of  tennis-courts. 

In  this  war  the  hand-grenade  is  king.  Com- 
pared with  it  the  high-power  rifle  is  a  joke. 
The  grenadier  regiments  again  deserve  the 
name.  For  cleaning  out  a  trench  or  stopping 
a  massed  charge  there  is  nothing  like  a  well- 
aimed  volley  of  hand-grenades.  I  believe  that 
the  total  failure  of  the  repeated  German  at- 
tempts to  break  through  on  the  western  front 
is  due  to  three  causes:  the  overwhelming  supe- 
riority of  the  French  artillery;  the  French  ad- 
diction to  the  use  of  the  bayonet — for  the 
Germans  do  not  like  cold  steel;  and  to  the  re- 
markable   proficiency    of   the    French    in    the 


142  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

use  of  hand-grenades.  The  grenade  commonly 
used  by  the  French  is  of  the  "bracelet"  type, 
consisting  of  a  cast-iron  ball  filled  with  ex- 
plosive. The  thrower  wears  on  his  wrist  a 
leather  loop  or  bracelet  which  is  prolonged  by 
a  piece  of  cord  about  a  foot  in  length  with  an 
iron  hook  at  the  end.  Just  before  the  grenade 
is  thrown,  the  hook  is  passed  through  the  ring 
of  a  friction-pin  inside  the  firing-plug  which 
closes  the  iron  ball.  By  a  sharp  backward 
turn  of  the  wrist  when  the  grenade  is  thrown, 
the  ring,  with  the  friction-pin,  held  back  by 
the  hook,  is  torn  off,  the  grenade  itself  con- 
tinuing on  its  brief  journey  of  destruction. 
The  French  also  use  a  primed  grenade  attached 
to  a  sort  of  wooden  racket,  which  can  be 
quickly  improvised  on  the  spot,  and  which, 
from  its  form,  is  popularly  known  as  the 
"hair-brush."  To  acquire  proficiency  in  the 
use  of  grenades  requires  considerable  practise, 
for  the  novice  who  attempts  to  throw  one  of 
these  waspish-tempered  missiles  is  as  hkely  to 
blow  up  his  comrades  as  he  is  the  enemy.  So 
at  various  points  along  the  front  the  French 
have  established  bomb-throwing  schools,  under 
competent  instructors,  where  the  soldiers  are 


THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     143 

taught  the  proper  method  of  throwing  gre- 
nades, just  as,  at  the  winter  training-camps, 
candidates  for  the  big  leagues  are  taught  the 
proper  method  of  throwing  a  baseball. 

Some  of  the  grenades  are  too  large  to  be 
thrown  by  hand  and  so  they  are  hurled  into 
the  enem}-'s  trenches  by  various  ingenious 
machines  designed  for  the  purpose.  There  is, 
for  example,  the  sauterelle,  a  modern  adapta- 
tion of  the  ancient  arbalist,  which  can  toss  a 
bomb  the  size  of  a  nail-keg  into  a  trench  ninety 
feet  away.  Mortars  which  did  good  service  in 
the  days  of  Bertrand  du  GuescHn  have  been 
unearthed  from  ancient  citadels,  and  in  the 
trenches  are  again  barking  defiance  at  the 
enemies  of  France.  Because  of  their  frog- 
like appearance,  the  soldiers  have  dubbed  them 
crapouillots,  and  they  are  used  for  throwing 
bombs  of  the  horned  variety,  which  look  more 
than  anything  else  like  snails  pushing  their 
heads  out  of  their  shells.  Still  another  type, 
known  as  the  taupia,  consists  merely  of  a  Ger- 
man 77-millimetre  shell-case  with  a  touch-hole 
bored  in  the  base  so  that  it  can  be  fired  by  a 
match.  This  little  improvised  mortar,  whose 
name  was  no  doubt  coined  from  the  French  word 


144  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!'' 

for  "mole"   {taupe)   as  appropriate  to  under- 
ground warfare  throws   a  tin  containing  two 
and  a  quarter  pounds  of  high  explosive  for  a 
short    distance    with     considerable    accuracy. 
Still  another  type  of  bomb  is  hurled  from  a 
catapult,  which  does  not  differ  materially  from 
those  which  were  used  at  the  siege  of  Troy. 
Doubtless   the  most  accurate  and  effective  of 
all  the  bombs  used  in  this  trench  warfare  is 
the  so-called  air-torpedo,  a  cigar-shaped  shell 
about  thirty  inches  long  and  weighing  thirty- 
threie  pounds,  which  is  fitted  with  steel  fins, 
like  the  feathers  on  an  arrow  and  for  the  same 
purpose.    This  projectile,  which  is  fired  from  a 
specially    designed    mortar,    has    an    effective 
range   of  five   hundred   yards    and    carries    a 
charge  of  high  explosive  sufficient  to  demolish 
everything   within    a    radius    of  twenty    feet. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  these  torpedoes  of  the  air 
were  used  during  the  French  offensive  in  Cham- 
pagne and  created  terrible  havoc  in  the  German 
trenches.      But   by   far  the  most  imposing  of 
these  trench  projectiles  is  the  great  air-mine, 
weighing  two  hundred   and  thirty-six  pounds 
and  as  large  as  a  barrel,  which  is  fired  from  an 
Somillimetre  mountain   gun   with   the  wheels 


THE  RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     145 

removed  and  mounted  on  an  oak  platform. 
In  the  case  of  both  the  air-torpedo  and  the 
air-mine  the  projectile  does  not  enter  the 
barrel  of  the  gun  from  which  it  is  fired,  but  is 
attached  to  a  tube  which  alone  receives  the 
propulsive  force.  At  first  the  various  forms  of 
trench  mortars — mineniverfer,  the  Germans  call 
them — were  unsatisfactory  because  they  were 
not  accurate  and  could  not  be  depended  upon, 
no  one  being  quite  sure  whether  the  resulting 
explosion  was  going  to  occur  in  the  French 
trenches  or  in  the  German.  They  have  been 
greatly  improved,  however,  and  though  no  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  give  them  velocity, 
they  drop  their  bombs  with  reasonable  accu- 
racy. You  can  see  them  plainly  as  they  end- 
over-end  toward  you,  like  beer-bottles  or  beer- 
kegs  coming  through  the  air. 

Nor  does  this  by  any  means  exhaust  the  list 
of  killing  devices  which  have  been  produced 
by  this  war.  There  is,  for  example,  the  little, 
insignificant-looking  bomb  with  wire  triggers 
sticking  out  from  it  in  all  directions,  like  the 
prickers  on  a  horse-chestnut  burr.  These 
bombs  are  thickly  strewn  over  the  ground  be- 
tween the  trenches.     If  the  enemy  attempts  to 


146  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

charge  across  that  ground  some  soldier  is  al- 
most certain  to  step  on  one  of  those  little 
trigger-wires.  To  collect  that  soldier's  re- 
mains it  would  be  necessary  to  use  a  pail  and 
shovel.  The  Germans  are  said  to  dig  shallow 
pools  outside  their  trenches  and  cement  the 
bottoms  of  those  pools  and  fill  them  with  acid, 
which  is  masked  by  boughs  or  straw.  Any 
soldiers  who  stumbled  into  those  pools  of  acid 
would  have  their  feet  burned  off.  This  I 
have  not  seen,  but  I  have  been  assured  that  it 
is  so.  Along  certain  portions  of  the  front  the 
orthodox  barbed-wire  entanglements  are  giving 
way  to  great  spirals  of  heavy  telegraph  wire, 
which,  lying  loose  upon  the  ground,  envelop 
and  hamper  an  advancing  force  Hke  the  ten- 
tacles of  a  giant  cuttlefish.  This  wire  comes 
in  coils  about  three  feet  in  diameter,  but  in- 
stead of  unwinding  it  the  coils  are  opened  out 
into  a  sort  of  spiral  cage,  which  can  be  rolled 
over  the  tops  of  the  trenches  without  exposing 
a  man.  A  bombardment  which  would  wipe 
the  ordinary  barbed-wire  entanglement  out  of 
existence,  does  this  new  form  of  obstruction 
comparatively  little  harm,  while  the  wire  is  so 
tough  and  heavy  that  the  soldiers  with  nippers 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     147 

who  precede  a  storming-party  cannot  cut  it. 
Another  novel  contrivance  is  the  hinged  en- 
tanglement, a  sort  of  barbed-wire  fence  which, 
when  not  in  use,  lies  flat  upon  the  ground,  where 
it  is  but  little  exposed  to  shell-fire,  but  which, 
by  means  of  wires  running  back  to  the  trenches, 
can  be  pulled  upright  in  case  of  an  attack,  so 
that  the  advancing  troops  suddenly  find  them- 
selves confronted  by  a  formidable  and  unex- 
pected barrier.  In  cases  where  the  lines  are 
so  close  together  that  for  men  to  expose  them- 
selves would  mean  almost  certain  death, 
chevaux-de-frise  of  steel  and  wire  are  con- 
structed in  the  shelter  of  the  trenches  and 
pushed  over  the  parapet  with  poles.  The 
French  troops  now  frequently  advance  to  the 
assault,  carrying  huge  rolls  of  thick  linoleum, 
which  is  unrolled  and  thrown  across  the  en- 
tanglements, thus  forming  a  sort  of  bridge,  by 
means  of  which  the  attacking  force  is  enabled 
to  cross  the  river  of  barbed  wire  in  front  of 
the  German  trenches. 

It  is  not  safe  to  assert  that  anything  relating 
to  this  war  is  untrue  merely  because  it  is  in- 
credible. I  have  with  my  own  eyes  seen  things 
which,  had  I  been  told  about  them  before  the 


148  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

war  began,  I  would  have  set  down  as  the  imagin- 
ings of  a  disordered  mind.  Some  one  asked  me 
if  I  knew  that  the  scene-painters  of  the  French 
theatres  had  been  mobihzed  and  formed  into  a 
battalion  for  the  purpose  of  painting  scenery 
to  mask  gun-positions — and  I  laughed  at  the 
story.  Since  then  I  have  seen  gun-positions  so 
hidden.  Suppose  that  it  is  found  necessary  to 
post  a  battery  in  the  open,  where  no  cover  is 
available.  In  the  ordinary  course  of  events 
the  German  airmen  would  discover  those  guns 
before  they  had  fired  a  dozen  rounds,  and  the 
German  batteries  would  promptly  proceed  to 
put  them  out  of  action.  So  they  erect  over 
them  a  sort  of  tent,  and  the  scene-painters  are 
set  to  work  so  to  paint  that  tent  that,  from  a 
little  distance,  it  cannot  be  distinguished  from 
the  surrounding  scenery.  If  it  is  on  the  Belgian 
littoral  they  will  paint  it  to  look  like  a  sand- 
dune.  If  it  is  in  the  wooded  country  of  Alsace 
or  the  Argonne  they  will  so  paint  it  that,  seen 
from  an  aeroplane,  it  will  look  like  a  clump  of 
trees.  I  have  seen  a  whole  row  of  aeroplane 
hangars,  each  of  them  the  size  of  a  church,  so 
cleverly  painted  that,  from  a  thousand  feet 
above,  they  could  not  be  seen  at  all.     A  road 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     149 

over  which  there  is  heavy  traffic  lies  within 
both  range  and  sight  of  the  enemy's  guns. 
Anything  seen  moving  along  that  road  in- 
stantly becomes  the  target  for  a  rain  of  shells. 
So  along  the  side  of  the  road  nearest  the  en- 
emy is  raised  a  screen  of  canvas,  like  those 
which  surround  the  side-shows  at  the  circus, 
but,  instead  of  being  decorated  with  lurid  rep- 
resentations of  the  Living  Skeleton  and  the 
Wild  Man  from  Borneo  and  the  Fattest 
Woman  on  Earth,  and  the  Siamese  Twins,  it  is 
painted  to  represent  a  row  of  trees  such  as 
commonly  border  French  highways.  Behind 
that  canvas  screen  horse,  foot,  and  guns  can 
then  be  moved  in  safety,  though  the  road  must 
be  kept  constantly  sprinkled  so  that  the  sus- 
picions of  the  German  observers  shall  not  be 
aroused  by  a  telltale  cloud  of  dust.  The  stalk- 
ing-screen  is  a  device  used  for  approaching  big 
game  by  sportsmen  the  world  over.  Now  the 
idea  has  been  applied  by  the  French  to  warfare, 
the  big  game  being  in  this  case  Germans.  The 
screens  are  of  steel  plates  covered  with  canvas 
so  painted  that  it  looks  like  a  length  of  trench, 
the  deception  being  heightened  by  sticking  to 
the  canvas  tufts  of  grass.    Thus  screened  from 


ISO  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

the  enemy,  two  or  three  men  may  secretly  keep 
watch  at  points  considerably  in  advance  of  the 
real  trenches,  creeping  forward  as  opportunity 
offers,  pushing  their  scenery  before  them. 
Both  sides  have  long  been  daubing  field-guns 
and  caissons  and  other  bulky  equipment  with 
all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow,  like  a  futurist 
landscape,  so  that  they  assume  the  properties 
of  a  chameleon  and  become  indistinguishable 
from  the  landscape.  Now  they  are  painting 
the  faces  of  the  snipers,  and  splashing  their  uni- 
forms and  rifle  barrels  with  many  colors  and 
tying  to  their  heads  wisps  of  grass  and  foliage. 
But  the  crowning  touch  was  when  the  French 
began  systematically  to  paint  their  white  horses 
with  permanganate  so  as  to  turn  them  into  less 
obtrusive  browns  and  sorrels. 

Hollowed  at  frequent  intervals  from  the 
earthen  back  walls  of  the  trenches  are  niches, 
in  each  of  which  is  kept  a  bottle  of  hyposul- 
phate  of  soda  and  a  pail  of  water.  When  the 
yellow  cloud  which  denotes  that  the  Germans 
have  turned  loose  their  poison-gas  comes  roll- 
ing down  upon  them,  the  soldiers  hastily  empty 
the  hyposulphate  into  the  water,  saturate  in 
the  solution  thus  formed  a  pad  of  gauze  which 


p  »    i    •• 


From  a  pkototrapk  by  Meurisie. 

Chcvaux-<lc-frisc  and  movable  entanglements. 

"Mfn-ablc  cnlanKl'i'ifiil"  arc  I'liiintriictcd  In  the  shelter  of  the  trenches  and 
puihcd  over  the  parapet  uilii  polch  m>  that  the  men  dn  not  have  lo  cxpiinc 
iheinKrlvca." 


'leaking  precautions  against  a  gas  attack. 

'When  the  poison-gas  comes  rolling  down  upon  the  trenches  the  soldiers  fasten 
over  the  mouth  and  nostrils  a  pad  of  gauze  saturated  in  a  hypobulphate 
solution." 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     151 

they  always  carry  with  them,  fasten  it  over 
the  mouth  and  nostrils  by  means  of  an  elastic, 
and,  as  an  additional  precaution,  draw  over  the 
head  a  bag  of  blue  linen  with  a  piece  of  mica 
set  in  the  front  and  a  draw-string  to  pull  it  tight 
about  the  neck.  Thus  protected  and  looking 
strangely  like  the  hooded  familiars  of  the  In- 
quisition, they  are  able  to  remain  at  their  posts 
without  fear  of  asphyxiation.  But  no  protec- 
tion has  as  yet  been  devised  against  the  ter- 
rible flame  projector  which  has  been  introduced 
on  several  portions  of  the  western  front  by  the 
Germans.  It  is  a  living  sheet  of  flame,  caused 
by  a  gas  believed  to  be  oxyacetylene,  and  is  prob- 
ably directed  through  a  powerful  air-jet.  The 
pressure  of  the  air  must  be  enormous,  for  the 
flame,  which  springs  from  the  ground  level  and 
expands  into  a  roaring  wave  of  fire,  chars  and 
burns  everything  within  thirty  yards.  The 
flame  is,  indeed,  very  like  that  of  the  common 
blowpipe  used  by  plumbers,  but  instead  of 
being  used  upon  lead  pipe  it  is  used  upon 
human  flesh  and  bone. 

But  poison-gas  and  flame  projectors  are  by 
no  means  the  most  devilish  of  the  devices  in- 
troduced by  the  Germans.    The  soldiers  of  the 


152  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

Kaiser  have  now  adopted  the  weapon  of  the 
jealous  prostitute  and  are  throwing  vitriol. 
The  acid  is  contained  in  fragile  globes  or  phials 
which  break  upon  contact,  scattering  the  liquid 
fire  upon  everything  in  the  immediate  vicin- 
ity. I  might  add  that  I  do  not  make  this  as- 
sertion except  after  the  fullest  investigation 
and  confirmation.  I  have  not  only  talked  with 
officers  and  men  who  were  in  the  trenches  into 
which  these  vitriol  bombs  were  thrown,  but 
American  ambulance  drivers  both  in  the  Vosges 
and  the  Argonne  told  me  that  they  had  carried 
to  the  hospitals  French  soldiers  whose  faces 
had  been  burned  almost  beyond  recognition, 

"But  we  captured  one  of  the  vitriol-throw- 
ers," said  an  officer  who  was  telling  me  about 
the  helhsh  business.  "He  was  pretty  badly 
burned  himself." 

"I  suppose  you  shot  him  then  and  there," 
said  I. 

"Oh,  no,"  was  the  answer,  "we  sent  him 
along  with  the  other  prisoners." 

"You  don't  mean  to  say,"  I  exclaimed,  in- 
dignation in  my  voice,  "that  you  captured  a 
man  who  had  been  throwing  vitriol  at  your 
soldiers  and  let  him  live  ? " 


THE   RETAKING  OF  ALSACE     153 

"Naturally,"  said  the  officer  quietly.  "There 
was  nothing  else  to  do.  You  see,  monsieur,  we 
French  are  civilized." 


THE  FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE 

WHEN  the  history  of  this  war  comes 
to  be  written,  the  great  French  of- 
fensive which  began  on  the  25th 
of  September,  191 5,  midway  between  Rheims 
and  Verdun,  will  doubtless  be  known  as  the 
Battle  of  Champagne.  Hell  holds  no  horrors 
for  one  who  has  seen  that  battle-field.  Could 
Dante  have  walked  beside  me  across  that 
dreadful  place,  which  had  been  transformed  by 
human  agency  from  a  peaceful  countryside 
to  a  garbage  heap,  a  cesspool,  and  a  charnel- 
house  combined,  he  would  never  have  written 
his  "Inferno,"  because  the  hell  of  his  imagina- 
tion would  have  seemed  colorless  and  tame. 
The  difficulty  in  writing  about  it  is  that  people 
will  not  beheve  me.  I  shall  be  accused  of 
imagination  and  exaggeration,  whereas  the 
truth  is  that  no  one  could  imagine,  much  less 
exaggerate,  the  horrors  that  I  saw  upon  those 
roUing,  chalky  plains. 

154 


12 


o 
o 
a 


c 
a. 


U 


^     o 

•4=       >. 


H    f 

O 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     155 

In  order  that  3'ou  may  get  clearly  in  your 
mind  the  setting  of  this  titanic  conflict,  in  which 
nearly  a  million  and  a  half  Frenchmen  and  Ger- 
mans were  engaged  and  in  which  Europe  lost 
more  men  in  killed  and  wounded  than  fought 
at  Gettysburg,  get  out  your  atlas,  and  on  the 
map  of  eastern  France  draw  a  more  or  less 
irregular  line  from  Rheims  to  Verdun.  This 
line  roughly  corresponds  to  the  battle-front  in 
Champagne.  On  the  south  side  of  it  were  the 
French,  on  the  north  the  Germans.  About 
midway  between  Rheims  and  Verdun  mark  off 
on  that  line  a  sector  of  some  fifteen  miles. 
If  you  have  a  sufficiently  large  scale  map,  the 
hamlet  of  Auberive  may  be  taken  as  one  end 
of  the  sector  and  Massiges  as  the  other.  This, 
then,  was  the  spot  chosen  by  the  French  for 
their  sledge-hammer  blow  against  the  Ger- 
man wall  of  steel. 

There  is  scarcely  a  region  in  all  France  where 
a  battle  could  have  been  fought  with  less  in- 
jury to  property.  Imagine,  if  you  please,  an 
immense  undulating  plain,  its  surface  broken 
by  occasional  low  hills  and  ridges,  none  of  them 
much  over  six  hundred  feet  in  height,  and 
wandering  in  and  out  between  those  ridges  the 


156  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

narrow  stream  which  Is  the  Marne.  The 
country  hereabouts  is  very  sparsely  settled; 
the  few  villages  that  dot  the  plain  are  wretchedly 
poor;  the  trees  on  the  slopes  of  the  ridges  are 
stunted  and  scraggly;  the  soil  is  of  chalky 
marl,  which  you  have  only  to  scratch  to  leave 
a  staring  scar,  and  the  grass  which  tries  to 
grow  upon  it  seems  to  wither  and  die  of  a 
broken  heart.  This  was  the  great  manoeuvre 
ground  of  Chalons,  and  it  was  good  for  little 
else,  yet  only  a  few  miles  to  the  westward  be- 
gin the  vineyards  which  are  France's  chief 
source  of  wealth,  and  an  hour's  journey  to  the 
eastward  is  the  beautiful  forest  of  the  Argonne. 
Virtually,  the  entire  summer  of  191 5  was 
spent  by  the  French  in  making  their  prepara- 
tions for  the  great  oflPensive.  These  prepara- 
tions were  assisted  by  the  extension  of  the  Brit- 
ish front  as  far  as  the  Somme,  thus  releasing  a 
large  number  of  French  troops  for  the  operations 
in  Champagne;  by  the  formation  of  new  French 
units;  and  by  the  extraordinary  quantity  of 
ammunition  made  available  by  hard  and  con- 
tinuous work  in  the  factories.  The  volume  of 
preparatory  work  was  stupendous.  Artillery  of 
every  pattern  and  caHber,  from  the  hght  moun- 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     157 

tain  guns  to  the  monster  weapons  which  the 
workers  of  Le  Creusot  and  Bourges  had  pro- 
phetically' christened  ^^ Les  VainqueurSy"  was 
gradually  assembled  until  nearly  three  thousand 
guns  had  been  concentrated  on  a  front  of  only 
fifteen  miles.  Had  the  guns  been  placed  side 
by  side  they  would  have  extended  far  beyond 
the  fifteen-mile  battle-front.  There  were  can- 
non ever^'where.  Each  battery  had  a  desig- 
nated spot  to  fire  at  and  a  score  of  captive  bal- 
loons with  telephonic  connections  directed  the 
fire.  One  batter}'  was  placed  just  opposite  a 
German  redoubt  which,  the  Germans  boasted, 
could  be  held  against  the  whole  French  army 
by  two  washerwomen  with  machine-guns.  Be- 
hind each  of  the  French  guns  were  stacked  two 
thousand  shells.  A  net-work  of  light  railways 
was  built  in  order  to  get  this  enormous  supply 
of  ammunition  up  to  the  guns.  From  the  end 
of  the  railway  they  built  a  macadamized  high- 
way, forty  feet  wide  and  nine  miles  long, 
straight  as  a  ruler  across  the  rolling  plain. 
Underground  shelters  for  the  men  were  dug 
and  underground  stores  for  the  arms  and  am- 
munition. The  field  was  dotted  with  subterra- 
nean first-aid  stations,  their  locations  indicated 


158  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

by  sign-boards  with  scarlet  arrows  and  by  the 
Red  Cross  flags  flying  over  them.  That  the 
huge  masses  of  infantry  to  be  used  in  the  attack 
might  reach  their  stations  without  being  an- 
nihilated by  German  shell-fire,  the  French  dug 
forty  miles  of  reserve  and  communication 
trenches,  ten  miles  of  which  were  wide  enough 
for  four  men  to  walk  abreast.  Hospitals  all  over 
France  were  emptied  and  put  in  readiness  for 
the  river  of  wounded  which  would  soon  come 
flowing  in.  In  addition  to  all  this,  moral  prep- 
aration was  also  necessary,  for  it  was  a  ques- 
tion whether  the  preceding  months  of  trench 
warfare  and  the  individual  character  it  gives 
to  actions  had  not  afi'ected  the  control  of  the 
officers  over  their  men.  Everything  was  fore- 
seen and  provided  for;  nothing  was  left  to 
chance.  The  French  had  undertaken  the  big- 
gest job  in  the  world,  and  they  set  about  ac- 
complishing it  as  systematically,  as  methodi- 
cally as  though  they  had  taken  a  contract  to 
build  a  Simplon  Tunnel  or  to  dig  a  Panama 
Canal. 

The  Germans  had  held  the  line  from  Au- 
berive  to  the  Forest  of  the  Argonne  since  the 
battle  of  the  Marne.    For  more  than  a  year  they 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     159 

had  been  constructing  fortifications  and  de- 
fenses of  so  formidable  a  nature  that  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  that  they  con- 
sidered their  position  as  being  virtually  im- 
pregnable. Their  trenches,  which  were  topped 
with  sand-bags  and  in  many  cases  had  walls 
of  concrete,  were  protected  by  wire  entangle- 
ments, some  of  which  were  as  much  as  sixty 
yards  deep.  The  ground  in  front  of  the  en- 
tanglements was  strewn  with  sharpened  stakes 
and  chevaux-de-frise  and  land  mines  and  bombs 
which  exploded  upon  contact.  The  men  man- 
ning the  trenches  fought  from  behind  shields  of 
armor-plate  and  every  fifteen  yards  was  a  ma- 
chine-gun. Mounted  on  the  trench  walls  were 
revolving  steel  turrets,  miniature  editions  of 
those  on  battleships,  all  save  the  top  of  the  tur- 
ret and  the  muzzle  of  the  quick-firing  gun  within 
it  being  embedded  in  the  ground.  The  trenches 
formed  a  veritable  maze,  with  traps  and  blind 
passageways  and  cul-de-sacs  down  which  at- 
tackers would  swarm  only  to  be  wiped  out  by 
skilfully  concealed  machine-guns.  At  some 
points  there  were  five  lines  of  trenches,  one  be- 
hind the  other,  the  ground  behind  them  being 
divided  into  sections  and  supplied  with  an  ex- 


i6o  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

traordlnary  number  of  communication  trenches, 
protected  by  wire  entanglements  on  both  sides, 
so  that,  in  case  the  first  Hne  was  compelled  to 
give  way,  the  assailants  would  find  themselves 
confronted  by  what  were  to  all  intents  a  series 
of  small  forts,  heavily  armed  and  communicat- 
ing one  with  the  other,  thus  enabling  the  de- 
fenders to  rally  and  organize  flank  attacks  with- 
out the  slightest  delay.  This  elaborate  system 
of  trenches  formed  only  the  first  German  line  of 
defense,  remember;  behind  it  there  was  a  sec- 
ond line,  the  artillery  being  stationed  between 
the  two.  There  was,  moreover,  an  elaborate 
system  of  light  railways,  some  of  which  came 
right  up  to  the  front  line,  connecting  with  the 
line  from  Challerange  to  Bazancourt,  that  there 
might  be  no  delay  in  getting  up  ammunition 
and  fresh  troops  from  the  bases  in  the  rear. 
No  wonder  that  the  Germans  regarded  their  po- 
sition as  an  inland  Gibraltar  and  listened  with 
amused  complacence  to  the  reports  brought  in 
by  their  aviators  of  the  great  preparations  be- 
ing made  behind  the  French  lines.  Not  yet  had 
they  heard  the  roar  of  France's  massed  artil- 
lery or  seen  the  heavens  open  and  rain  down 
death. 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     i6i 

On  the  morning  of  September  22  began 
the  great  bombardment — the  greatest  that  the 
world  had  ever  known.  On  that  morning  the 
French  commander  issued  his  famous  general 
order:  "I  want  the  artillery  so  to  bend  the 
trench  parapets,  so  to  plough  up  the  dug-outs 
and  subterranean  defenses  of  the  enemy's  Hne, 
as  to  make  it  almost  possible  for  my  men  to 
march  to  the  assault  with  their  rifles  at  the 
shoulder."  It  will  be  seen  that  the  French 
artillerymen  had  their  work  laid  out  for  them. 
But  they  went  about  it  knowing  exactly  what 
they  were  doing.  During  the  long  months  of 
waiting  the  French  airmen  had  photographed 
and  mapped  ever}^  turn  and  twist  in  the  en- 
emy's trenches,  every  entanglement,  every 
path,  every  tree,  so  that  when  all  was  in  readi- 
ness the  French  were  almost  as  familiar  with 
the  German  position  as  were  the  Germans 
themselves.  The  first  task  of  the  French  gun- 
ners was  to  destroy  the  wire  entanglements, 
and  when  they  finished  few  entanglements  re- 
mained. The  next  thing  was  to  bury  the  Ger- 
mans in  their  dug-outs,  and  so  terrific  was  the 
torrent  of  high  explosive  that  whole  companies 
which  had  taken  refuge  in  their  underground 


i62  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

shelters  were  annihilated.  The  parapets  and 
trenches  had  also  to  be  levelled  so  that  the  in- 
fantry could  advance,  and  so  thoroughly  was 
this  done  that  the  French  cavalry  actually 
charged  over  the  ground  thus  cleared.  Then, 
while  the  big  guns  were  shelling  the  German 
cantonments,  the  staff  headquarters,  and  the 
railways  by  which  reinforcements  might  be 
brought  up,  the  field-batteries  turned  their  at- 
tention to  the  communication  trenches,  drop- 
ping such  a  hail  of  projectiles  that  all  telephone 
communication  between  the  first  and  second 
lines  was  interrupted,  so  that  the  second  line 
did  not  know  what  was  happening  in  the  first. 
There  are  no  words  between  the  covers  of  the 
dictionary  to  describe  what  it  must  have  been 
like  within  the  German  lines  under  that  rain 
of  death.  The  air  was  crowded  with  the  French 
shells.  No  wonder  that  scores  of  the  Ger- 
man prisoners  were  found  to  be  insane.  A 
curtain  of  shell-fire  made  it  impossible  for  food 
or  water  to  be  brought  to  the  men  in  the  bom- 
barded trenches,  and  made  it  equally  impos- 
sible for  these  men  to  retreat.  Hundreds  of 
them  who  had  taken  refuge  in  their  under- 
ground   shelters   were   buried    alive   when   the 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE      163 

explosion  of  the  great  French  marmites  sent  the 
earthen  walls  crashing  in  upon  them.  Whole 
forests  of  trees  were  mown  down  by  the  blast 
of  steel  from  the  French  guns  as  a  harvester 
mows  down  a  field  of  grain.  The  wire  entangle- 
ments before  the  German  trenches  were  swept 
awa}^  as  though  by  the  hand  of  God.  The 
steel  chcvaux-dc-frise  and  the  shields  of  armor- 
plate  were  riddled  like  a  sheet  of  paper  into 
which  has  been  emptied  a  charge  of  buck- 
shot. Trenches  which  it  had  taken  months  of 
painstaking  toil  to  build  were  utterly  demolished 
in  an  hour.  The  sand-bags  which  lined  the 
parapets  were  set  on  fire  b}'  the  French  high 
e.xplosive  and  the  soldiers  behind  them  were 
suffocated  by  the  fumes.  The  bursts  of  the 
big  shells  were  like  volcanoes  above  the  German 
lines,  vomiting  sk)'w^ard  huge  geysers  of  earth 
and  smoke  which  hung  for  a  time  against  the 
horizon  and  were  then  gradually  dissipated  by 
the  wind.  For  three  days  and  two  nights  the 
bombardment  never  ceased  nor  slackened.  The 
French  gunners,  streaming  with  sweat  and 
grimed  with  powder,  worked  like  the  stokers 
on  a  record-breaking  liner.  The  metallic  tang 
of  the  *' soixante-quinze"  and  the  deep-mouthed 


i64  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

roar  of  the  120's,  the  155's,  and  the  370's,  and 
the  screech  and  moan  of  the  shells  passing 
overhead  combined  to  form  a  hurricane  of 
sound.  Conversation  was  impossible.  To 
speak  to  a  man  beside  him  a  soldier  had  to 
shout.  Though  the  ears  of  the  men  were  stuffed 
with  cotton  they  ached  and  throbbed  to  the 
unending  detonation.  An  American  aviator 
who  flew  over  the  lines  when  the  bombardment 
was  at  its  height  told  me  that  the  German 
trenches  could  not  be  seen  at  all  because  of 
the  shells  bursting  upon  them.  "The  noise," 
he  said,  "was  like  a  machine-gun  made  of  can- 
non." Imagine,  then,  what  must  have  been  the 
terror  of  the  Germans  cowering  in  the  trenches 
which  they  had  confidently  believed  were 
proof  against  anything  and  which  they  sud- 
denly found  were  no  protection  at  all  against 
that  rain  of  death  which  seemed  to  come  from 
no  human  agency,  but  to  be  heUish  in  the 
frightfulness  of  its  effect.  When  the  bombard- 
ment was  at  its  height  the  shells  burst  at  the 
rate  of  twenty  a  second,  forming  one  wave  of 
black  smoke,  one  unbroken  line  of  exploding 
shells,  as  far  as  the  horizon. 
Graphic  glimpses  of  what  it  must  have  been 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     165 

like  in  the  German  trenches  during  that  three 
days'  bombardment  are  given  by  the  letters 
and  diaries  found  on  the  bodies  of  German  sol- 
diers— written,  remember,  in  the  very  shadow 
of  death,  some  of  them  rendered  illegible  be- 
cause spattered  with  the  blood  of  the  men  who 
wrote  them. 

"The  railway  has  been  shelled  so  heavily 
that  all  trains  are  stopped.  We  have  been  in 
the  first  line  for  three  days,  and  during  that 
time  the  French  have  kept  up  such  a  fire  that 
our  trenches  cannot  be  seen  at  all." 

"The  artillery  are  firing  almost  as  fast  as 
the  infantry.  The  whole  front  is  covered  with 
smoke  and  we  can  see  nothing.  Men  are 
dying  like  flies." 

"A  hail  of  shells  is  falHng  upon  us.  No  food 
can  be  brought  to  us.  When  will  the  end  come  ? 
'Peace!'  is  what  every  one  is  saying.  Little 
is  left  of  the  trench.  It  will  soon  be  on  a  level 
with  the  ground." 

"The  noise  is  awful.  It  is  like  a  collapse  of 
the  world.  Sixty  men  out  of  a  company  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  were  killed  last  night.  The 
force  of  the  French  shells  is  frightful.  A  dug- 
out fifteen  feet  deep,  with  seven  feet  of  earth 


i66  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

and  two  layers  of  timber  on  top,  was  smashed 
up  like  so  much  matchwood." 

When  the  reveille  rang  out  along  the  French 
lines  at  five-thirty  on  the  morning  of  Sep- 
tember 25  the  whole  world  seemed  gray;  lead- 
colored  clouds  hung  low  overhead,  and  a  driz- 
zling rain  was  falling.  But  the  men  refused 
to  be  depressed.  They  drank  their  morning 
coffee  and  then,  the  roar  of  the  artillery  making 
conversation  out  of  the  question,  they  sat  down 
to  smoke  and  wait.  Through  the  loopholes 
they  could  watch  the  effect  of  the  fire  of  the 
French  batteries,  could  see  the  fountains  of 
earth  and  smoke  thrown  up  by  the  bursting 
shells,  could  even  see  arms  and  legs  flying  in 
the  air.  Each  man  wore  between  his  shoulders, 
pinned  to  his  coat,  a  patch  of  white  cahco,  in 
order  to  avoid  the  possibiHty  of  the  French 
gunners  firing  into  their  own  men.  Several 
men  in  each  company  carried  small,  colored 
signal-flags  for  the  same  purpose.  The  watches 
of  the  officers  had  been  carefully  synchronized, 
and  at  nine  o'clock  the  order  to  fall  in  was  given, 
and  there  formed  up  in  the  advance  trenches 
long  rows  of  strange  fighting  figures  in  their 
"invisible"  pale-blue  uniforms,  their  grim,  set 


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FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE      167 

faces  peering  from  beneath  steel  helmets  plas- 
tered with  chalk  and  mud.  The  company  rolls 
were  called.  The  drummers  and  buglers  took 
up  their  positions,  for  orders  had  been  issued 
that  the  troops  were  to  be  played  into  action. 
Nine-five!  The  regimental  battle-flags  were 
brought  from  the  dug-outs,  the  water-proof 
covers  were  slipped  off,  and  the  sacred  colors, 
on  whose  faded  silk  were  embroidered  "Les 
P3Tamides,"  "Wagram,"  "Jena,"  "Auster- 
litz,"  "Marengo,"  were  reverently  unrolled. 
For  the  first  time  in  this  war  French  troops 
were  to  go  into  action  with  their  colors  flying. 
Nine-ten!  The  officers,  endeavoring  to  make 
their  voices  heard  above  the  din  of  cannon,  told 
the  men  in  a  few  shouted  sentences  what 
France  and  the  regiment  expected  of  them. 
Nine-fourteen !  The  ofiicers,  having  jerked 
loose  their  automatics,  stood  with  their  watches 
in  their  hands.  The  men  were  like  sprinters  on 
their  marks,  waiting  with  tense  nerves  and 
muscles  for  the  starter's  pistol.  Nine-fifteen! 
Above  the  roar  of  the  artillery  the  whistles  of 
the  ofiicers  shrilled  loud  and  clear.  The  bugles 
pealed  the  charge.  ^^ En  avant,  mes  en/ants!** 
screamed  the  ofl&cers,  "En  avant!  Vaincre  ou 


i68  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

mourir!"  and  over  the  tops  of  the  trenches, 
with  a  roar  Hke  an  angry  sea  breaking  on  a 
rock-bound  coast,  surged  a  fifteen-mile-long 
human  wave  tipped  with  gUstening  steel.  As 
the  blue  billows  of  men  burst  into  the  open, 
hoarsely  cheering,  the  French  batteries  which 
had  been  shelling  the  German  first-line  trenches 
ceased  firing  with  an  abruptness  that  was  star- 
tling. In  the  comparative  quiet  thus  suddenly 
created  could  be  plainly  heard  the  orders  of 
the  officers  and  the  cheering  of  the  men,  some 
of  whom  shouted  "Vive  la  France!''  while 
others  sang  snatches  of  the  Marseillaise  and  the 
Carmagnole.  Though  every  foot  of  ground 
over  which  they  were  advancing  had  for  three 
days  been  systematically  flooded  with  shell, 
though  the  German  trenches  had  been  pounded 
until  they  were  Httle  more  than  heaps  of  dirt 
and  debris,  the  German  artillery  was  still  on 
the  job,  and  the  ranks  of  the  advancing  French 
were  swept  by  a  hurricane  of  fire.  General 
Marchand,  the  hero  of  the  famous  incident  at 
Fashoda,  who  was  in  command  of  the  Colonials, 
led  his  men  to  the  assault,  but  fell  wounded  at 
the  very  beginning  of  the  engagement  as,  sur- 
rounded by  his  staff,  he  stood  on  the  crest  of  a 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     169 

trench,  cane  in  hand,  smoking  his  pipe  and  en- 
couraging the  succeeding  waves  of  men  racing 
forward  into  battle.  His  two  brigade-com- 
manders fell  close  beside  him.  Three  minutes 
after  the  first  of  the  Colonials  had  scrambled 
over  the  top  of  their  trenches  they  had  reached 
the  German  first  line.  After  them  came  the 
First  and  Second  Regiments  of  the  Foreign 
Legion  and  the  Moroccan  division.  As  they 
ran  they  broke  out  from  columns  of  two  (ad- 
vancing in  twos  with  fifty  paces  between  each 
pair)  into  columns  of  squad  (each  man  alone, 
twenty-five  paces  from  his  neighbor)  as  prettily 
and  perfectly  as  though  on  a  parade-ground. 

Great  as  was  the  destruction  wrought  by 
the  bombardment,  the  French  infantry  had 
no  easy  task  before  them,  for  stretches  of  wire 
entanglements  still  remained  in  front  of  por- 
tions of  the  German  trenches,  while  at  fre- 
quent intervals  the  Germans  had  left  behind 
them  machine-gun  sections,  who  from  their 
sunken  positions  poured  in  a  deadly  fire,  until 
the  oncoming  wave  overwhelmed  and  blotted 
them  out.  It  was  these  death-traps  that 
brought  out  in  the  French  soldier  those  same 
heroic  qualities  which  had  enabled  him,  under 


I70  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

the  leadership  of  Napoleon,  to  enter  as  a  con- 
queror every  capital  in  Europe.  A  man  who 
was  shot  while  cutting  a  way  for  his  company 
through  the  wire  entanglements,  turned  and 
gave  the  cutters  to  a  comrade  before  he  fell. 
A  wounded  soldier  lying  on  the  ground  called 
out  to  an  officer  who  was  stepping  aside  to 
avoid  him:  "Go  on.  Don't  mind  stepping 
on  me.  I'm  wounded.  It's  only  you  who 
are  whole  who  matter  now."  A  man  with 
his  abdomen  ripped  open  by  a  shell  appealed 
to  an  officer  to  be  moved  to  a  dressing-sta- 
tion. "The  first  thing  to  move  are  the  guns 
to  advanced  positions,  my  friend,"  was  the 
answer.  "That's  right,"  said  the  man;  "I 
can  wait."  Said  a  wounded  soldier  after- 
ward in  describing  the  onslaught:  '^'When  the 
bugles  sounded  the  charge  and  the  trumpets 
played  the  Marseillaise^  we  were  no  longer 
mere  men  marching  to  the  assault.  We  were 
a  living  torrent  which  drives  all  before  it.  The 
colors  were  flying  at  our  side.  It  was  splendid. 
Ay,  my  friend,  when  one  has  seen  that  one  is 
proud  to  be  alive." 

In  many  places  the  attacking  columns  found 
themselves  abruptly  halted   by  steel   chevaux- 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     171 

de-frisey  with  German  machine-guns  spitting 
death  from  behind  them.  The  men  would 
pelt  them  with  hand-grenades  until  the  sappers 
came  up  and  blew  the  obstructions  away. 
Then  they  would  sweep  forward  again  with  the 
bayonet,  yelling  madly.  The  great  craters 
caused  by  the  explosion  of  the  French  land 
mines  were  occupied  as  soon  as  possible  and 
immediately  turned  into  defensible  positions, 
thus  affording  advanced  footholds  within  the 
enemy's  line  of  trenches.  At  a  few  points  in 
the  first  line  the  Germans  held  out,  but  at 
others  they  surrendered  in  large  numbers, 
while  many  were  shot  down  as  they  were  run- 
ning back  to  the  second  line.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  Germans  had  no  conception  of  what 
the  French  had  in  store  for  them,  and  it  was 
not  until  their  trenches  began  to  give  way  un- 
der the  terrible  hammering  of  the  French  artil- 
lery that  they  reaUzed  how  desperate  was  their 
situation.  It  was  then  too  late  to  strengthen 
their  front,  however,  as  it  would  have  been 
almost  certain  death  to  send  men  forward 
through  the  curtain  of  shell-fire  which  the 
French  batteries  were  dropping  between  the 
first  and  second  lines.     Nor  were  the  Germans 


172  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

prepared  when  the  infantry  attack  began,  as 
was  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  number  of  officers 
were  captured  in  their  beds.  The  number  of 
prisoners  taken — twenty-one  thousand  was  the 
figure  announced  by  the  French  General  Staff 
— showed  clearly  that  they  had  had  enough  of 
it.  They  surrendered  by  sections  and  by  com- 
panies, hundreds  at  a  time.  Most  of  them 
had  had  no  food  for  several  days,  and  were 
suffering  acutely  from  thirst,  and  all  of  them 
seemed  completely  unstrung  and  depressed  by 
the  terrible  nature  of  the  French  bombardment. 
Choosing  the  psychological  moment,  when 
the  retirement  of  the  Germans  showed  signs  of 
turning  into  panic,  the  African  troops  were 
ordered  to  go  in  and  finish  up  the  business  with 
cold  steel.  Before  these  dark-skinned,  fierce- 
faced  men  from  the  desert,  who  came  on  bran- 
dishing their  weapons  and  shouting  "Allah ! 
Allah!  Allah!"  the  Germans,  already  de- 
moralized, incontinently  broke  and  ran.  Hard 
on  the  heels  of  the  Africans  trotted  the  dra- 
goons and  the  chasseurs  a  cheval — the  first 
time  since  the  trench  warfare  began  that 
cavalry  have  had  a  chance  to  fight  from  the 
saddle — sabring  the  fleeing  Germans  or  driv- 


Fighting  in  a  quarrel  that  is  not  his  own. 
A  irooptr  from  Francc't  African  pjttcxiona  on  duty  in  ilio  iretiches. 


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FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     173 

ing  them  out  of  their  dug-outs  with  their  long 
lances.  But  in  the  vast  maze  of  communica- 
tion trenches  and  in  the  underground  shelters 
Germans  still  swarmed  thickly,  so  the  "trench 
cleaners,"  as  the  Algerian  and  Senegalese 
tirailleurs  are  called,  were  ordered  to  clear 
them  out,  a  task  which  they  performed  with 
neatness  and  despatch,  revolver  in  one  hand 
and  cutlass  in  the  other.  Even  five  days  after 
the  trenches  were  taken  occasional  Germans 
were  found  in  hiding  in  the  labyrinth  of  under- 
ground shelters. 

The  thing  of  which  the  Champagne  battle- 
field most  reminded  me  was  a  garbage-dump. 
It  looked  and  smelled  as  though  all  the  garbage 
cans  in  Europe  and  America  had  been  emptied 
upon  it.  This  region,  as  I  have  remarked 
before,  is  of  a  chalk  formation,  and  wherever 
a  trench  had  been  dug,  or  a  shell  had  burst, 
or  a  mine  had  been  exploded,  it  left  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  a  livid  scar.  The  destruction 
wrought  by  the  French  artillery  fire  is  almost 
beyond  imagining.  Over  an  area  as  long  as 
from  the  Battery  to  Harlem  and  as  wide  as 
from  the  East  River  to  the  Hudson  the  earth 
is  pitted  with  the  craters  caused  by  bursting 


174  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

shells  as  is  pitted  the  face  of  a  man  who  has 
had  the  small-pox.  Any  of  these  shell-holes 
was  large  enough  to  hold  a  barrel;  many  of 
them  would  have  held  a  horse;  I  saw  one, 
caused  by  the  explosion  of  a  mine,  which  we 
estimated  to  be  seventy  feet  deep  and  twice 
that  in  diameter.  In  the  terrific  blast  that 
caused  it  five  hundred  German  soldiers  per- 
ished. At  another  point  on  what  had  been 
the  German  first  line  I  saw  a  yawning  hole  as 
large  as  the  cellar  of  a  good-sized  apartment- 
house.  It  marked  the  site  of  a  German  block- 
house, but  the  blockhouse  and  the  men  who 
composed  its  garrison  had  been  blown  out  of 
existence  by  a  torrent  of  370-millimetre  high- 
explosive  shells. 

The  captured  German  trenches  presented  the 
most  horrible  sight  that  I  have  ever  seen  or 
ever  expect  to  see.  This  is  not  rhetoric;  this  is 
fact.  Along  the  whole  front  of  fifteen  miles 
the  earth  was  littered  with  torn  steel  shields 
and  twisted  wire,  with  broken  wagons,  bits 
of  harness,  cartridge-pouches,  dented  helmets, 
belts,  bayonets — some  of  them  bent  double — 
broken  rifles,  field-gun  shells  and  rifle  car- 
tridges, hand-grenades,  aerial  torpedoes,  knap- 


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FIGHTING   IN  CHAMPAGNE      175 

sacks,  bottles,  splintered  planks,  sheets  of  cor- 
rugated iron  which  had  been  turned  into  sieves 
by  bursting  shrapnel,  trench  mortars,  blood- 
soaked  bandages,  fatigue-caps,  intrenching 
tools,  stoves,  iron  rails,  furniture,  pots  of  jam 
and  marmalade,  note-books,  water-bottles,  mat- 
tresses, blankets,  shreds  of  clothing,  and,  most 
horrible  of  all,  portions  of  what  had  once  been 
human  bodies.  Passing  through  an  abandoned 
German  trench,  I  stumbled  over  a  mass  of  gray 
rags,  and  they  dropped  apart  to  disclose  a  head- 
less, armless,  legless  torso  already  partially  de- 
voured by  insects.  I  kicked  a  hobnailed  Ger- 
man boot  out  of  my  path  and  from  it  fell  a 
rotting  foot.  A  hand  with  awful,  outspread 
fingers  thrust  itself  from  the  earth  as  though 
appealing  to  the  passerby  to  give  decent  burial 
to  its  dead  owner.  I  peered  inquisitively  into  a 
dug-out  only  to  be  driven  back  by  an  overpow- 
ering stench.  A  French  soldier,  more  hardened 
to  the  business  than  I,  went  in  with  a  candle, 
and  found  the  shell-blackened  bodies  of  three 
Germans.  Clasped  in  the  dead  fingers  of  one  of 
them  was  a  post-card  dated  from  a  little  town 
in  Bavaria.  It  began:  "My  dearest:.  Heinrich: 
^'ou  went  away  from  us  just  a  year  ago  to-day. 


1/6  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

I  miss  you  terribly,  as  do  the  children,  and  we 
all  pray  hourly  for  your  safe  return — "  The 
rest  we  could  not  decipher;  it  had  been  blotted 
out  by  a  horrid  crimson  stain.  Without  the 
war  that  man  might  have  been  returning,  after 
a  day's  work  in  field  or  factory,  to  a  neat 
Bavarian  cottage,  with  geraniums  growing  in 
the  dooryard,  and  a  wife  and  children  waiting 
for  him  at  the  gate. 

Though  when  I  visited  the  battle-field  of 
Champagne  the  guns  were  still  roaring — for  the 
Germans  were  attempting  to  retake  their  lost 
trenches  in  a  desperate  series  of  counter-attacks 
— the  field  was  already  dotted  with  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  Httle  wooden  crosses  planted 
upon  new-made  mounds.  Above  many  of  the 
graves  there  had  been  no  time  to  erect  crosses  or 
headboards,  so  into  the  soft  soil  was  thrust,  neck 
downward,  a  bottle,  and  in  the  bottle  was  a 
slip  of  paper  giving  the  name  and  the  regiment 
of  the  soldier  who  lay  beneath.  In  one  place 
the  graves  had  been  dug  so  as  to  form  a  vast 
rectangle,  and  a  priest,  his  cassock  tucked  up  so 
that  it  showed  his  miUtary  boots  and  trousers, 
was  at  work  with  saw  and  hammer  building  in 
the  centre  of  that  field  of  graves  a  little  shrine. 


I  he  price  of  victory. 

TTic  battlc-firld  was  dotted  with  tlioiisands  upon  thousands  of  ncw-madc 
moundit  and  little  wuodcii  trusses. 


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FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     177 

Scrawled  in  pencil  on  one  of  the  pitiful  little 
crosses  I  read:  **Un  brave — Emile  Petit — Mort 
aux  Champ  d'Honneur — Priez  pour  lui,"  Six 
feet  away  was  another  cross  which  marks  the 
spot  where  sleeps  Gottlieb  Zimmerman,  of  the 
Wiirtemberg  Pioneers,  and  underneath,  in  Ger- 
man script,  that  line  from  the  Bible  which 
reads:  "He  fought  the  good  fight."  Close  by 
was  still  another  little  mound  under  which 
rested,  so  the  headboard  told  me,  Mohammed 
ben  Hassen  Bazazou  of  the  Fourth  Algerian 
Tirailleurs.  In  life  those  men  had  never  so 
much  as  heard  of  one  another.  Doubtless  they 
must  often  have  wondered  why  they  were 
fighting  and  what  the  war  was  all  about.  Now 
they  rest  there  quietly,  side  by  side,  French- 
man and  German  and  African,  under  the  soil 
of  Champagne,  while  somewhere  in  France 
and  in  Wiirtemberg  and  in  Algeria  women  are 
praying  for  the  safety  of  Emile  and  of  Gott- 
lieb and  of  Mohammed. 

During  the  three  days  that  I  spent  upon  the 
battle-field  of  Champagne  the  roar  of  the  guns 
never  ceased  and  rarely  slackened,  yet  not  a 
sign  of  any  human  being  could  I  see  as  I  gazed 
out  over  that  desolate  plain  on  which  was  being 


178  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

fought  one  of  the  greatest  battles  of  all  time. 
There  were  no  moving  troops,  no  belching  bat- 
teries, no  flaunting  colors — only  a  vast  slag 
heap  on  which  moved  no  hving  thing.  Yet  I 
knew  that  hidden  beneath  the  ground  all 
around  me,  as  well  as  over  there  where  the 
German  trenches  ran,  men  were  waiting  to  kill 
or  to  be  killed,  and  that  behind  the  trench- 
scarred  ridges  at  my  back,  and  behind  the  low- 
lying  crests  in  front  of  me,  sweating  men  were 
at  work  loading  and  firing  the  great  guns  whose 
screaming  missiles  crisscrossed  Hke  invisible 
express  trains  overhead  to  burst  miles  away, 
perhaps,  with  the  crash  which  scatters  death. 
The  French  guns  seemed  to  be  literally  every- 
where. One  could  not  walk  a  hundred  yards 
without  stumbling  on  a  skilfully  concealed 
battery.  In  the  shelter  of  a  ridge  was  posted 
a  battery  of  155-minimetre  monsters  painted 
with  the  markings  of  a  giraffe  in  order  to 
escape  the  searching  eyes  of  the  German 
aviators  and  named  respectively  Alice,  Fer- 
nande,  Charlotte,  and  Maria.  From  a  square 
opening,  which  yawned  like  a  cellar  window 
in  the  earth,  there  protruded  the  long,  lean 
muzzle  of  an  eight-inch  naval  gun,  the  breech 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     179 

of  which  was  tw'enty  feet  below  the  level  of 
the  ground  in  a  gun-pit  which  was  capable  of 
resisting  any  high  explosive  that  might  chance 
to  fall  upon  it.  This  marine  monster  was  in 
charge  of  a  crew  of  sailors  who  boasted  that 
their  pet  could  drop  two  hundred  pounds  of 
melinite  on  any  given  object  thirteen  miles 
away.  But  the  guns  to  which  the  French  owe 
their  success  in  Champagne,  the  guns  which 
may  well  prove  the  deciding  factor  in  this  war, 
are  not  the  cumbersome  siege  pieces  or  the 
mammoth  naval  cannon,  but  the  mobile, 
quick-firing,  never-tiring,  hard-hitting,  "seven- 
ty-fives," whose  fire,  the  Germans  resentfully 
exclaim,  is  not  deadly  but  murderous. 

The  battle-field  was  almost  as  thickly  strewn 
with  unexploded  shells,  hand-grenades,  bombs, 
and  aerial  torpedoes  as  the  ground  under  a 
pine-tree  is  with  cones.  One  was,  in  fact,  com- 
pelled to  walk  with  the  utmost  care  in  order 
to  avoid  stepping  upon  these  tubes  filled  with 
sudden  death  and  being  blown  to  kingdom 
come.  I  had  picked  up  and  was  casually  ex- 
amining what  looked  like  a  piece  of  broom- 
handle  with  a  tin  tomato-can  on  the  end,  when 
the  intelligence  officer  who  was  accompanying 


i8o  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

me  noticed  what  I  was  doing.  "Don't  drop 
that!"  he  exclaimed,  "put  it  down  gently. 
It's  a  German  hand-grenade  that  has  failed  to 
explode  and  the  least  jar  may  set  it  oflP.  They're 
as  dangerous  to  tamper  with  as  nitroglycerine." 
I  put  it  down  as  carefully  as  though  it  were  a 
sleeping  baby  that  I  did  not  wish  to  waken. 
As  the  French  Government  has  no  desire  to 
lose  any  of  its  soldiers  unnecessarily,  men  had 
been  set  to  work  building  around  the  unexploded 
shells  and  torpedoes  little  fences  of  barbed  wire, 
just  as  a  gardener  fences  in  a  particularly 
rare  shrub  or  tree.  Other  men  were  at  work 
carefully  rolling  up  the  barbed  wire  in  the 
captured  German  entanglements,  in  collect- 
ing and  sorting  out  the  arms  and  equipment 
with  which  the  field  was  strewn,  in  stacking 
up  the  thousands  upon  thousands  of  empty 
brass  shell-cases  to  be  shipped  back  to  the  fac- 
tories for  reloading,  and  even  in  emptying  the 
bags  filled  with  sand  which  had  lined  the  Ger- 
man parapets  and  tying  them  in  bundles  ready 
to  be  used  over  again.  They  are  a  thrifty 
people,  are  the  French.  There  was  enough 
junk  of  one  sort  and  another  scattered  over  the 
battle-field  to  have  stocked  all  the  curio-shops 


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FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     i8i 

in  Europe  and  America  for  years  to  come,  but 
as  everything  on  a  field  of  battle  is  claimed  by 
the  government  nothing  can  be  carried  away. 
This  explains  why  the  brass  shells  that  are 
smuggled  back  to  Paris  readily  sell  for  ten 
dollars  apiece,  while  for  German  helmets  the 
curio  dealers  can  get  almost  any  price  that 
they  care  to  ask.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is 
against  the  law  to  offer  any  war  trophies  for 
sale  or,  indeed,  to  have  any  in  one's  possession. 
What  the  French  intend  to  do  with  the  vast 
quantity  of  junk  which  they  have  taken  from 
the  battle-fields,  heaven  only  knows.  It  is 
said  that  the}'  have  great  storehouses  filled 
with  German  helmets  and  similar  trophies 
which  they  are  going  to  sell  after  the  war  to 
souvenir  collectors,  thus  adding  to  the  national 
revenues.  If  this  is  so  there  will  certainly  be 
a  glut  in  the  curio  market  and  it  will  be  a  poor 
household  indeed  that  will  not  have  on  the 
sitting-room  mantel  a  German  pickelhaube. 
After  the  war  is  over  hordes  of  tourists  will 
no  doubt  make  excursions  to  these  battle- 
fields, just  as  they  used  to  make  excursions  to 
Waterloo  and  Gett}'sburg,  and  the  farmers 
who  own   the   fields  will   make  their  fortunes 


1 82  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

showing  the  visitors  through  the  trenches  and 
dug-outs  at  five  francs  a  head. 

The  French  officers  who  accompanied  me 
over  the  battle-field  particularly  called  my 
attention  to  a  steel  turret,  some  six  feet  high 
and  eight  or  nine  feet  in  diameter,  which  had 
been  mounted  on  one  of  the  German  trench 
walls.  The  turret,  which  had  a  revolving 
top,  contained  a  50-millimetre  gun  served  by 
three  men.  The  French  troops  who  stormed 
the  German  position  found  that  the  small  steel 
door  giving  access  to  the  interior  of  the  turret 
was  fastened  on  the  outside  by  a  chain  and 
padlock.  When  they  broke  it  open  they  found, 
so  they  told  me,  the  bodies  of  three  Germans 
who  had  apparently  been  locked  in  by  their 
officers,  and  left  there  to  fight  and  die  with  no 
chance  of  escape.  I  have  no  reason  in  the 
world  to  doubt  the  good  faith  of  the  officers 
who  showed  me  the  turret  and  told  me  the 
story,  and  yet — well,  it  is  one  of  those  things 
which  seems  too  improbable  to  be  true.  When 
I  was  in  Alsace  the  French  officers  told  me  of 
having  found  in  certain  of  the  captured  posi- 
tions German  soldiers  chained  to  their  machine- 
guns.     There  again  the  inherent  improbability 


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"Brown-skinned  men  from  North  Africa  in  turbans  and 
burnooses." 


FIGHTING   IN  CHAMPAGNE      183 

of  the  incident  leads  one  to  question  its  truth. 
From  what  I  have  seen  of  the  German  soldier, 
I  should  say  that  he  was  the  last  man  in  the 
world  who  had  to  be  chained  to  his  gun  in  order 
to  make  him  fight.  Yet  in  this  war  so  many 
wildly  improbable,  wholl}'  incredible  things 
have  actually  occurred  that  one  is  not  justified 
in  denying  the  truth  of  an  assertion  merely  be- 
cause it  sounds  unlikely. 

One  of  the  things  that  particularly  impressed 
me  during  my  visit  to  Champagne  was  the 
feverish  activity  that  prevailed  behind  the  fir- 
ing-line. It  was  the  busiest  place  that  I  have 
ever  seen;  busier  than  Wall  Street  at  the  noon- 
hour;  busier  than  the  Canal  Zone  at  the  rush 
period  of  the  Canal's  construction.  The  roads 
behind  the  front  for  twenty  miles  were  filled 
with  moving  troops  and  transport-trains;  long 
columns  of  sturdy  infantrymen  in  mud-stained 
coats  of  faded  blue  and  wearing  steel  casques 
which  gave  them  a  startling  resemblance  to 
their  ancestors,  the  men-at-arms  of  the  Middle 
Ages;  brown-skinned  men  from  North  Africa 
in  snowy  turbans  and  voluminous  burnooses, 
and  black-skinned  men  from  West  Africa,  whose 
khaki  uniforms  were  brightened  by  broad  red 


1 84  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

sashes  and  rakish  red  tarbooshes;  sun-tanned 
Colonial  soldiery  from  Annam  and  Tonquin, 
from  Somaliland  and  Madagascar,  wearing  on 
their  tunics  the  ribbons  of  wars  fought  in  lands 
of  which  most  people  have  never  so  much  as 
heard;  Spahis  from  Morocco  and  the  Sahara, 
mounted  on  horses  as  wiry  and  hardy  as  them- 
selves; Zouaves  in  jaunty  fezzes  and  braided 
jackets  and  enormous  trousers;  sailors  from 
the  fleet,  brought  to  handle  the  big  naval  guns, 
swaggering  along  with  the  roll  of  the  sea  in 
their  gait;  cuirassiers,  their  steel  breastplates 
and  horse-tailed  helmets  making  them  look 
astonishingly  Hke  Roman  horsemen;  dragoons 
so  picturesque  that  they  seemed  to  be  pos- 
ing for  a  Detaille  or  a  Meissonier;  field-bat- 
teries, pale  blue  Hke  everything  else  in  the 
French  army,  rocking  and  swaying  over  the 
stones;  cyclists  with  their  rifles  slung  across 
their  backs  hunter-fashion;  leather-jacketed 
despatch  riders  on  panting  motor-cycles;  post- 
offices  on  wheels;  telegraph  offices  on  wheels; 
butcher-shops  on  wheels;  bake-shops  on  wheels; 
garages  on  wheels;  motor-busses,  their  tops 
covered  with  wire-netting  and  filled  with  car- 
rier-pigeons;   giant    search-lights;    water-carts 


M'<t(>r-t>usfs  with  wiri-iictiing  tops  filled  with  carrier  pigeons. 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     185 

drawn  b}'  patient  Moorish  donkeys  whose  tur- 
baned  drivers  cursed  them  in  shrill,  harsh 
Arabic;  troop  transport  cars  like  miniature 
railway-coaches,  each  carrying  fifty  men;  field- 
kitchens  with  the  smoke  pouring  from  their 
stovepipes  and  steam  rising  from  the  soup 
caldrons;  long  lines  of  drinking-water  wagons, 
the  gift  of  the  Touring  Club  de  France;  great 
herds  of  cattle  and  woolly  waves  of  sheep,  soon 
to  be  converted  into  beef  and  mutton,  for  the 
fighting  man  needs  meat,  and  plenty  of  it; 
pontoon-trains;  balloon  outfits;  machine-guns; 
pack-trains;  mountain  batteries;  ambulances; 
world  without  end,  amen.  Though  the  roads 
were  jammed  from  ditch  to  ditch,  there  was  no 
confusion,  no  congestion.  Everything  was  as 
well  regulated  as  the  traffic  on  Fifth  Avenue 
or  the  Strand.  If  the  roads  were  crowded,  so 
were  the  fields.  Here  a  battalion  of  Zouaves  at 
bayonet  practise  was  being  instructed  in  the 
"haymaker's  lift,"  that  terrible  upward  thrust 
in  which  a  soldier  trained  in  the  use  of  the 
bayonet  can,  in  a  single  stroke,  rip  his  adver- 
sary open  from  waist  to  neck,  and  toss  him 
over  his  shoulder  as  he  would  a  forkful  of  hay. 
Over  there  a  brigade  of  chasseurs  d'Jfrique  was 


i86  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

encamped,  the  long  lines  of  horses,  the  hooded 
wagons,  and  the  fires  with  the  cooking-pots 
steaming  over  them,  suggesting  a  mammoth  en- 
campment of  gypsies.  In  the  next  field  a  regi- 
ment of  Moroccan  tirailleurs  had  halted  for  the 
night,  and  the  men,  kneehng  on  their  blankets, 
were  praying  with  their  faces  turned  toward 
Mecca.  Down  by  the  horse-lines  a  Moorish 
barber  was  at  work  shaving  the  heads  of  the 
soldiers,  but  taking  care  always  to  leave  the 
little  top-knot  by  means  of  which  the  faithful, 
when  they  die,  may  be  jerked  to  Paradise.  A 
little  farther  on  the  huge  yellow  bulk  of  an  ob- 
servation balloon — "Z^j-  saucisses,"  the  French 
call  them — ^was  slowly  filling  preparatory  to  tak- 
ing its  place  aloft  with  its  fellows,  which,  at 
intervals  of  half  a  mile,  hung  above  the  French 
lines,  straining  at  their  tethers  like  horses  that 
were  frightened  and  wished  to  break  away. 
In  whichever  direction  I  looked,  men  were  drill- 
ing or  marching.  Where  all  these  hordes  of 
men  had  come  from,  where  they  were  bound 
for,  what  they  were  going  to  do,  no  one  seemed 
to  know  or,  indeed,  to  particularly  care.  They 
were  merely  pawns  which  were  being  moved 
here  and  there  upon  a  mighty  chess-board  by  a 
stout  old  man  in  a  general's  uniform,  sitting 


FIGHTING   IN  CHAMPAGNE      187 

at  a  map-covered  table  in  a  farmhouse  many 
miles  away. 

As  we  made  our  way  slowly  and  laboriously 
toward  the  front  across  a  region  so  Uttered 
with  scraps  of  metal  and  broken  iron  and 
twisted  wire  that  it  looked  like  the  ruins  of 
a  burned  hardware  store,  we  began  to  meet 
the  caravans  of  wounded.  Lying  with  white, 
drawn  faces  on  the  dripping  stretchers  were 
men  whose  bodies  had  been  ripped  open  like 
the  carcasses  that  hang  in  front  of  butcher- 
shops;  men  who  had  been  blinded  and  will 
spend  the  rest  of  their  da3^s  groping  in  dark- 
ness; men  smashed  out  of  all  resemblance  to 
anything  human,  yet  still  alive;  and  other  men 
who,  with  no  wound  upon  them,  raved  and 
laughed  and  cackled  in  insane  mirth  at  the 
frightful  humor  of  the  things  that  they  had 
seen.  Every  house  and  farmyard  for  miles 
around  was  filled  with  wounded,  and  still  they 
came  streaming  in,  some  hobbling,  some  on 
stretchers,  some  assisted  by  comrades,  some 
bareheaded,  with  the  dried  blood  clotted  on 
their  heads  and  faces,  others  with  their  gas- 
masks and  their  mud-plastered  helmets  still  on. 
Two  soldiers  came  by  pushing  wheeled  stretchers, 
on  which  lay  the  stiff,  stark  forms  of  dead  men. 


i88  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

The  soldiers  were  whistling  and  singing,  like 
men  returning  from  a  day's  work  well  done, 
and  occasionally  one  of  them  in  sheer  exu- 
berance of  spirits  would  send  his  helmet  spin- 
ning into  the  air.  Coming  to  a  little  declivity, 
they  raced  down  it  with  their  grisly  burdens, 
like  delivery  boys  racing  with  their  carts.  The 
light  vehicles  bumped  and  jounced  over  the 
uneven  ground  until  one  of  the  corpses  threat- 
ened to  fall  off,  whereupon  the  soldiers  stopped 
and,  still  laughing,  tied  the  dead  thing  on  again. 
Such  is  the  callousness  begotten  by  war. 

Their  offensive  in  Champagne  cost  the 
French,  I  have  every  reason  to  believe,  very 
close  to  110,000  men.  The  German  casual- 
ties, so  the  French  General  Staff  asserts,  were 
about  140,000,  of  whom  21,000  were  prisoners. 
In  addition  the  Germans  lost  121  guns.  De- 
spite this  appalling  cost  in  human  lives,  the 
distance  gained  by  the  French  was  so  small 
that  it  cannot  be  seen  on  the  ordinary  map. 
Yet  to  measure  the  effect  of  the  French  effort 
by  the  ground  gained  would  be  a  serious  mis- 
take. Just  as  by  the  Marne  victory  the  French 
stopped  the  invasion  and  ruined  the  original 
German  plan,  which  was  first  to  shatter  France 


FIGHTING  IN  CHAMPAGNE     189 

and  then  turn  against  Russia;  and  just  as  by 
the  victory  of  the  Yser  they  effectively  pre- 
vented the  enemy  from  reaching  the  Channel 
ports  or  getting  a  foothold  in  the  Pas-de-Ca- 
lais, so  the  offensive  in  Champagne,  costly  as 
it  was  in  human  lives,  fulfilled  its  double  mis- 
sion of  holding  large  German  forces  on  the 
western  front  and  of  demoralizing  and  wearing 
down  the  German  army.  It  proved,  moreover, 
that  the  Allies  ca7i  pierce  the  Germans  provided 
they  are  wilUng  to  pay  the  cost. 

Darkness  was  falling  rapidly  when  I  turned 
my  back  on  the  great  battle-field,  and  the  guns 
were  roaring  with  redoubled  fury  in  what  is 
known  on  the  British  front  as  "the  Evening 
Hate"  and  on  the  French  lines  as  "the  Eve- 
ning Prayer."  As  I  emerged  from  the  communi- 
cation trench  into  the  highroad  where  my  car 
was  waiting  I  met  a  long  column  of  infantry, 
ghostly  figures  in  the  twilight,  with  huge  packs 
on  their  backs  and  rifles  slanting  on  their 
shoulders,  marching  briskly  in  the  direction 
of  the  thundering  guns.  It  was  the  night-shift 
going  on  duty  at  the  mills — the  mills  where 
they  turn  human  beings  into  carrion. 


VI 
THE  CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS 

DAWN  was  breaking  over  the  Lorraine 
hills  when  the  French  aircraft  were 
wheeled  from  their  canvas  hangars  and 
ranged  in  squadrilla  formation  upon  the  level 
surface  of  the  plain.  In  the  dim  light  of  early 
morning  the  machines,  with  their  silver  bodies 
and  snowy  wings,  bore  an  amazing  resemblance 
to  a  flock  of  great  white  birds  which,  having 
settled  for  the  night,  were  about  to  resume 
their  flight.  All  through  the  night  the  mech- 
anicians had  been  busy  about  them,  testing  the 
motors,  tightening  the  guy-wires,  and  adjust- 
ing the  planes,  while  the  pilots  had  directed  the 
loading  of  the  explosives,  for  a  whisper  had 
passed  along  the  line  of  sheds  that  a  gigantic 
air-raid,  on  a  scale  not  yet  attempted,  was  to 
be  made  on  some  German  town.  At  a  signal 
from   the  officer  in  command   of  the  aviation 

field  the  pilots  and  observers,   unrecognizable 

190 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     191 

in  their  goggles  and  leather  helmets  and  muf- 
fled to  the  ears  in  leather  and  fur,  climbed  into 
their  seats.  In  the  clips  beneath  each  aero- 
plane reposed  three  long,  lean  messengers  of 
death,  the  torpedoes  of  the  sky,  ready  to  be 
sent  hurtling  downward  by  the  pulling  of  a 
lever,  while  smaller  projectiles,  to  be  dropped 
by  hand,  filled  every  square  inch  in  the  bodies 
of  the  aeroplanes.  From  somewhere  out  on 
the  aviation  field  a  smoke  rocket  shot  suddenly 
into  the  air.  It  was  the  signal  for  departure. 
With  a  deafening  roar  from  their  propellers  the 
great  biplanes,  in  rapid  succession,  left  the 
ground  and,  like  a  flock  of  wild  fowl,  winged 
their  way  straight  into  the  rising  sun.  As  they 
crossed  the  German  lines  at  a  height  of  twelve 
thousand  feet  the  French  observers  could  see, 
far  below,  the  decoy  aeroplanes  which  had 
preceded  them  rocking  slowly  from  side  to  side 
above  the  German  antiaircraft  guns  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  divert  their  attention  from 
the  raiders. 

On  an  occasion  like  this  each  man  is  per- 
mitted the  widest  latitude  of  action.  He  is 
given  an  itinerary  which  he  is  expected  to  ad- 
here to  as  closely  as  circumstances  will  permit. 


192  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

and  he  is  given  a  set  point  at  which  to  aim  his 
bombs,  but  in  all  other  respects  he  may  use  his 
own  discretion.  The  raiders  flew  at  first  al- 
most straight  toward  the  rising  sun,  and  it 
was  not  until  they  were  well  within  the  en- 
emy's fines  that  they  altered  their  course,  turn- 
ing southward  only  when  they  were  opposite 
the  town  which  was  their  objective.  So  rapid 
was  the  pace  at  which  they  were  travelling 
that  it  was  not  yet  six  o'clock  when  the  com- 
mander of  the  squadron,  peering  through  his 
glasses,  saw,  far  below  him,  the  yellow  grid- 
iron which  he  knew  to  be  the  streets,  the 
splotches  of  green  which  he  knew  to  be  the 
parks,  and  the  squares  of  red  and  gray  which 
he  knew  to  be  the  buildings  of  Karlsruhe. 
The  first  warning  that  the  townspeople  had 
was  when  a  dynamite  shell  came  plunging  out 
of  nowhere  and  exploded  with  a  crash  that 
rocked  the  city  to  its  foundations.  The  people 
of  Karlsruhe  were  being  given  a  dose  of  the 
same  medicine  which  the  Zeppelins  had  given 
to  Antwerp,  to  Paris,  and  to  London.  As  the 
French  airmen  reached  the  town  they  swooped 
down  in  swift  succession  out  of  the  gray  morn- 
ing sky  until  they  were  close  enough  to  the 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     193 

ground  to  clearl}^  distinguish  through  the  fleecy- 
mist  the  various  objectives  which  had  been 
given  them.  For  weeks  they  had  studied  maps 
and  bird's-eye  photographs  of  Karlsruhe  until 
they  knew  the  place  as  well  as  though  they  had 
lived  in  it  all  their  lives.  One  took  the  old 
gray  castle  on  the  hill,  another  took  the  Mar- 
grave's palace  in  the  valley,  others  headed  for 
the  railway-station,  the  arms  factory,  and  the 
barracks.  Then  hell  broke  loose  in  Karlsruhe. 
For  nearly  an  hour  it  rained  bombs.  Not  in- 
cendiary bombs  or  shrapnel,  but  huge  4-inch 
and  6-inch  shells  filled  with  high  explosive 
which  annihilated  everything  they  hit.  Holes 
as  large  as  cellars  suddenly  appeared  in  the 
stone-paved  streets  and  squares;  buildings  of 
brick  and  stone  and  concrete  crashed  to  the 
ground  as  though  flattened  by  the  hand  of 
God;  fires  broke  out  in  various  quarters  of  the 
city  and  raged  unchecked;  the  terrified  in- 
habitants cowered  in  their  cellars  or  ran  in 
blind  panic  for  the  open  country;  the  noise 
was  terrific,  for  bombs  were  falling  at  the  rate 
of  a  dozen  to  the  minute;  beneath  that  rain  of 
death  Karlsruhe  rocked  and  reeled.  The  ar- 
tillery was  called  out   but   it  was  useless;    no 


194  "VIVE_LA  FRANCE!" 

guns  could  hit  the  great  white  birds  which 
twisted  and  turned  and  swooped  and  chmbed  a 
mile  or  more  overhead.  Each  aeroplane,  as 
soon  as  it  had  exhausted  its  cargo  of  explosives, 
turned  its  nose  toward  the  French  lines  and 
went  skimming  homeward  as  fast  as  its  pro- 
pellers could  take  it  there,  but  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  quivering,  shell-torn  town  it  must 
have  seemed  as  though  the  procession  of  air- 
craft would  never  cease.  The  return  to  the 
French  lines  was  not  as  free  from  danger  as 
the  outward  trip  had  been,  for  the  news  of 
the  raid  had  been  flashed  over  the  country  by 
wire  and  wireless  and  antiaircraft  guns  were  on 
the  lookout  for  the  raiders  everywhere.  The 
guarding  aeroplanes  were  on  the  alert,  however, 
and  themselves  attracted  the  fire  of  the  German 
batteries  or  engaged  the  German  Tauhes  while 
the  returning  raiders  sped  by  high  overhead. 
Of  the  four  squadrillas  of  aeroplanes  which  set 
out  for  Karlsruhe  only  two  machines  failed  to 
return.  These  lost  their  bearings  and  were 
surprised  by  the  sudden  rising  of  hawk-like 
Aviatiks  which  cut  them  off  from  home  and, 
after  fierce  struggles  in  the  air,  forced  them  to 
descend  into  the  German  Hnes.    But  it  was  not 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     195 

a  heav}'-  price  to  pay  for  the  destruction  that 
had  been  wrought  and  the  moral  effect  that 
had  been  produced,  for  all  that  day  the  roads 
leading  out  of  Karlsruhe  were  choked  with 
frantic  fugitives  and  the  stories  which  they 
told  spread  over  all  southern  Germany  a 
cloud  of  despondency  and  gloom.  Since  then 
the  news  of  the  Zeppelin  raids  on  London  has 
brought  a  thrill  of  fear  to  the  people  of  Karls- 
ruhe. They  have  learned  what  it  means  to 
have  death  drop  out  of  the  sky. 

More  progress  has  been  made  in  the  French 
air  service,  which  has  been  placed  under  the 
direction  of  the  recentl}'  created  Subministry 
of  Aviation,  than  in  an}'  other  branch  of  the 
Republic's  fighting  machine.  Though  definite 
information  regarding  the  French  air  service  is 
extremel}'  difficult  to  obtain,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  on  December  i,  1915,  France  had  more 
than  three  thousand  aeroplanes  in  commission, 
and  this  number  is  being  steadily  increased. 
The  French  machines,  though  of  many  makes 
and  types,  are  divided  into  three  classes,  ac- 
cording to  whether  they  are  to  be  used  for 
reconnoissance,  for  fire  control,  or  for  bombard- 
ment.    The  machines  generally  used  for  recon- 


196  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

noissance  work  are  the  Moranes,  the  Maurice 
Farmans,  and  a  new  type  of  small  machine 
known  as  the  "Baby"  Nieuport.  The  last- 
named,  which  are  but  twenty-five  feet  wide 
and  can  be  built  in  eight  days  at  a  cost  of  only 
six  thousand  francs,  might  well  be  termed  the 
Fords  of  the  air.  They  have  an  eighty-horse- 
power motor,  carry  only  the  pilot,  who  oper- 
ates the  machine-gun  mounted  over  his  head, 
and  can  attain  the  amazing  speed  of  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  miles  an  hour.  These  tiny 
machines  can  ascend  at  a  sharper  angle  than 
any  other  aeroplane  made,  it  being  claimed 
for  them,  and  with  truth,  that  they  can  do 
things  which  a  large  bird,  such  as  an  eagle  or 
a  hawk,  could  not  do.  The  machines  generally 
used  for  directing  artillery  fire  are  either 
Voisins  or  Caudron  biplanes.  The  Voisin, 
which  carries  an  observer  as  well  as  a  pilot,  is 
armed  with  a  Hotchkiss  quick-firer  throwing 
three-pound  shells,  being  the  only  machine  of 
its  size  having  sufficient  stabiUty  to  stand  the 
recoil  from  so  heavy  a  gun.  The  Caudron, 
which  likewise  has  a  crew  of  two  men,  has  two 
motors,  each  acting  independently  of  the  other. 
I  was  shown  one  of  these  machines  which,  dur- 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     197 

ing  an  observation  flight  over  the  German  Hnes, 
was  struck  by  a  shell  which  killed  the  observer 
and  demolished  one  of  the  motors;  the  other 
motor  was  not  damaged,  however,  and  with  it 
the  pilot  was  able  to  bring  the  machine  and  his 
dead  companion  back  to  the  French  lines. 
For  making  raids  and  bombardments  the  Voisin 
and  Breguet  machines  have  generally  been 
used,  but  they  are  now  being  replaced  by  the 
giant  triplane  which  has  fittingly  been  called 
"the  Dreadnaught  of  the  skies."  This  aerial 
monster,  the  last  word  in  aircraft  construction, 
has  a  sixty-three-foot  spread  of  wing;  its  four 
motors  generate  eight  hundred  horse-power; 
its  armament  consists  of  two  Hotchkiss  quick- 
firing  cannon  and  four  machine-guns;  it  can 
carr}'  twelve  men — though  on  a  raid  the  crew 
consists  of  four — and  twelve  hundred  pounds 
of  explosive;  its  cost  is  six  hundred  thousand 
francs. 

As  a  result  of  this  extraordinary  advance  in 
aviation,  France  has  to-day  a  veritable  aerial 
navy,  formed  in  squadrons  and  divisions,  with 
battle-planes,  cruisers,  scouts,  and  destroyers, 
all  heavily  armored  and  carrying  both  machine- 
guns    and   cannon   firing    3-inch   shells.     Each 


198  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

squadron,  as  at  present  formed,  consists  of  one 
battle-plane,  two  battle-cruisers,  and  six  scout- 
planes,  with  a  complement  of  upward  of  fifty 
officers  and  men,  which  includes  not  only 
the  pilots  and  observers  but  the  mechanics 
and  the  drivers  of  the  lorries  and  trailers 
which  form  part  of  each  outfit.  These  raiding 
squadrons  are  constantly  operating  over  the 
enemy's  lines,  bombarding  his  bases,  railway 
lines,  and  cantonments,  hindering  the  trans- 
portation of  troops  and  ammunition,  and  creat- 
ing general  demoralization  behind  the  firing- 
line.  On  such  forays  it  is  the  mission  of  the 
smaller  and  swifter  machines,  such  as  the  Nieu- 
pofts,  to  convoy  and  protect  the  larger  and 
slow^  craft  exactly  as  destroyers  convoy  and 
protect  a  battleship. 

Two  types  of  projectiles  are  carried  on  raid- 
ing aeroplanes:  aerial  torpedoes,  two,  three,  or 
four  in  number,  fitted  with  fins,  Uke  the  feathers 
on  an  arrow,  in  order  to  guide  their  course, 
which  are  held  by  clips  under  the  body  of  the 
machine  and  can  be  released  when  over  the 
point  to  be  bombarded  by  merely  pulling  a  • 
lever;  and  large  quantities  of  smaller  bombs, 
filled  with  high  explosive  and  fitted  with  per- 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     199 

cussion  fuses,  which  are  dropped  by  hand.  It 
is  extremely  difficult  to  attain  any  degree  of 
accuracy  in  dropping  bombs  from  moving  air- 
craft, for  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
projectiles,  on  being  released,  do  not  at  once 
fall  in  a  perfectly  straight  line  to  the  earth, 
like  a  brick  dropped  from  the  top  of  a  sky- 
scraper. When  an  aeroplane  is  travelling 
fonvard  at  a  speed  of,  let  us  say,  sixty  miles 
an  hour,  the  bombs  carried  on  the  machine 
are  also  moving  through  space  at  the  same  rate. 
Owing  to  this  forward  movement  combining 
with  the  downward  gravitational  drop,  the  path 
of  the  bomb  is  really  a  curve,  and  for  this  curve 
the  aviator  must  learn  to  make  allowance. 
Should  the  aircraft  hover  over  one  spot^  how- 
jever,  the  downward  flight  of  the  bomb  is,  of 
course,  comparatively  vertical. 

The  most  exciting,  as  well  as  the  most  danger- 
ous, work  allotted  to  the  aviators  is  that  of 
fl\ing  over  the  enemy's  lines  and,  by  means  of 
huge  cameras  fitted  with  telephoto  lens  and 
fastened  beneath  the  bodies  of  the  machines, 
taking  photographs  of  the  German  positions. 
As  soon  as  the  required  exposures  have  been 
made,  the  machine  speeds  back  to  the  French 


200  "VIVE   LA   FRANCE!" 

lines,  usually  amid  a  storm  of  bursting  shrapnel, 
and  the  plates  are  quickly  developed  in  the 
dark  room,  which  is  a  part  of  every  aerodrome. 
From  the  picture  thus  obtained  an  enlargement 
is  made,  and  within  two  or  three  hours  at  the 
most  the  staff  knows  every  detail  of  the  German 
position,  even  to  the  depth  of  the  wire  entangle- 
ments and  the  number  and  location  of  the 
machine-guns.  Should  weather  conditions  or 
the  activity  of  the  enemy's  antiaircraft  bat- 
teries make  it  inadvisable  to  send  a  machine  on 
one  of  these  photographic  excursions,  the 
camera  is  attached  to  a  cerf-volant,  or  war-kite. 
The  entire  equipment  is  carried  on  three  motor- 
cars built  for  the  purpose,  one  carrying  the  dis- 
mounted kite,  the  second  the  cameras  and 
crew,  while  the  third  car  is  a  dark  room  on 
wheels.  I  can  recall  few  more  interesting  sights 
along  the  battle-front  than  that  of  one  of  these 
war-kites  in  operation.  Taking  shelter  behind 
a  farmhouse  or  haystack,  the  staff,  in  scarcely 
more  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  about  it,  have 
jointed  together  the  bamboo  rods  which  form 
the  framework  of  the  kite,  the  linen  which 
forms  the  planes  is  stretched  into  place,  a 
camera  with  its  shutter  controlled  by  an  elec- 


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3 
O 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     201 

trie  wire  is  slung  underneath,  and  the  great 
kite  is  sent  into  the  air.  When  it  is  over  that 
section  of  the  enemy's  trenches  of  which  a 
photograph  is  wanted,  the  officer  at  the  end 
of  the  wire  presses  a  button,  the  shutter  of  the 
camera  swinging  a  thousand  feet  above  flashes 
open  and  shut,  the  kite  is  immediately  hauled 
down,  a  photographer  takes  the  holder  con- 
taining  the  exposed  plate  and  disappears  with 
it  into  the  wheeled  dark  room  to  appear,  five 
minutes  later,  with  a  picture  of  the  German 
trenches. 

The  change  that  aeroplanes  have  produced 
in  warfare  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  fact 
that  in  the  Russo-Japanese  war  the  Japanese 
fought  for  weeks  and  sacrificed  thousands  of 
men  in  order  to  capture  203-Metre  Hill,  not, 
mind  you,  because  of  its  strategic  importance, 
but  in  order  that  they  might  effectively  con- 
trol the  fire  of  their  siege  mortars,  which  were 
endeavoring  to  reach  the  battleships  in  the 
harbor  of  Port  Arthur.  To-day  that  informa- 
tion would  be  furnished  in  an  hour  by  aero- 
planes. From  dawn  to  dark  aircraft  hang 
over  the  enemy's  positions,  spotting  his  bat- 
teries, mapping  his  trenches,  noting  the  move- 


202  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

ments  of  troops  and  trains,  yet  with  a  storm  of 
shrapnel  bursting  about  them  constantly.  I 
remember  seeing,  in  Champagne,  a  French 
aeroplane  rocking  lazily  over  the  German 
lines,  and  of  counting  sixty  shrapnel  clouds 
floating  about  it  at  one  time.  So  thick  were 
the  patches  of  fleecy  white  that  they  looked 
hke  the  white  tufts  on  a  sky-blue  coverlet. 
The  shooting  of  the  German  verticals  (anti- 
aircraft guns)  has  steadily  improved  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  constant  practise  they  have  had,  so 
that  half  the  time  there  are  ragged  rents  in  the 
French  planes  caused  by  fragments  of  exploding 
shells.  So  deafening  is  the  racket  of  the  motor 
and  propeller,  however,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
hear  a  shell  unless  it  bursts  at  very  close  range, 
so  that  the  aviators,  intent  on  their  work,  are 
often  utterly  unconscious  of  how  near  they  are 
to  death.  It  is  very  curious  how  close  shells 
can  explode  to  a  machine  and  yet  not  cripple 
it  enough  to  bring  it  down.  A  pilot  flying  over 
the  German  Hnes  in  Flanders  had  his  leg 
smashed  by  a  bursting  shell,  which,  strangely 
enough,  did  no  damage  to  the  planes  or  motor. 
The  wounded  man  fainted  from  the  pain  and 
shock  and  his  machine,  left  uncontrolled,  began 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS    203 

to  plunge  earthward.  Recovering  conscious- 
ness, the  aviator,  despite  the  excruciating  pain 
which  he  was  suffering,  retained  sufficient 
strength  and  presence  of  mind  to  get  his  ma- 
chine under  control  and  head  it  back  for  the 
French  lines,  though  shrapnel  was  bursting  all 
about  him.  He  came  quietly  and  gracefully  to 
ground  at  his  home  aviation  field  and  then  fell 
over  his  steering  lever  unconscious. 

No  nervous  man  is  wanted  in  the  air  service, 
and  the  moment  that  a  flier  shows  signs  that 
his  nerves  are  becoming  affected  he  is  given  a 
furlough  and  ordered  to  take  a  rest.  So  great 
is  the  mental  strain,  the  exposure,  and  the  noise, 
however,  that  probably  twentj'-five  per  cent  of 
the  aviators  lose  their  nerve  completely  and 
have  to  leave  the  service  altogether.  Tht  great 
French  aviation  school  at  Buc,  near  Paris,  turns 
out  pilots  at  the  rate  of  one  hundred  and  sixty 
a  month.  The  first  lessons  are  given  on  a  ma- 
chine with  clipped  wings,  known  as  "the  pen- 
guin," which  cannot  rise  from  the  ground,  and 
from  this  the  men  are  gradually  advanced,  stage 
by  stage,  from  machines  as  safe  and  steady  and 
well-mannered  as  riding-school  horses,  until  they 
at  last  become  qualified  pilots,  capable  of  han- 


204  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

dling  the  quick-turning,  uncertain-tempered 
broncos  of  the  air.  Provided  he  has  sound 
nerves,  a  strong  constitution,  and  average  intelli- 
gence, a  man  who  has  never  been  in  a  machine 
before  can  become  a  quahfied  pilot  in  thirty 
days.  Since  the  war  began  the  French  air  ser- 
vice has  attracted  the  reckless,  the  daring,  and 
the  adventurous  from  the  four  corners  of  the 
earth  as  iron  fihngs  are  attracted  by  a  magnet. 
Wearing  on  the  collars  of  their  silver-blue  uni- 
forms the  gold  wings  of  the  flying  corps  are 
cow-punchers,  polo-players,  prize-fighters,  pro- 
fessional bicycle  riders,  big-game  hunters,  sol- 
diers of  fortune,  young  men  who  bear  famous 
names  and  other  young  men  whose  names  are 
notorious  rather  than  famous.  In  one  squadrilla 
on  the  Champagne  front  I  found  a  Texan  cow- 
boy and  adventurer  named  Hall;  Elliott  Cow- 
din,  the  Long  Island  polo-player;  and  Charpen- 
tier,  the  heavyweight  champion  of  France,  For 
youngsters  who  are  seeking  excitement  and 
adventure,  no  sport  in  the  world  can  offer  the 
thrills  of  the  chasse  au  Taube.  To  drive  with  one 
hand  a  machine  that  travels  through  space  at 
a  speed  double  that  of  the  fastest  express-train 
and  with  the  other  hand  to  operate  a  mitrai- 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     305 

lleusc  that  spits  death  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand 
shots  a  minute;  to  twist  and  turn  and  loop 
and  circle  two  miles  above  the  earth  in  an 
endeavor  to  overcome  an  adversary  as  quick- 
witted and  quick-acting  as  yourself,  knowing 
that  if  you  are  victorious  the  victory  is  due  to 
your  skill  and  courage  alone — there  you  have  a 
game  which  makes  all  other  sports  appear 
ladylike  and  tame. 

When  an  aeroplane  armed  with  a  mitrailleuse 
attacks  an  enemy  machine  the  pilot  immediately 
manoeuvres  so  as  to  permit  the  gunner  observer 
to  bring  his  gun  into  action.  In  order  to  make 
the  bullets  "spread"  and  insure  that  at  least 
some  of  the  many  shots  get  home,  the  gunner 
swings  his  weapon  up  and  down,  with  a  kind 
of  chopping  motion,  so  that,  viewed  from  the 
front  of  the  machine,  the  stream  of  bullets, 
were  they  visible,  would  be  shaped  like  a  fan. 
At  the  same  time  the  gunner  swings  his  weapon 
gently  round,  covering  with  a  stream  of  lead 
the  space  through  which  his  enemy  will  have 
to  pass.  Should  the  enemy  machine  be  below 
the  other,  then  to  get  clear  he  would  possibly 
dive  under  his  opponent  in  a  sweeping  turn. 
By  this  manoeuvre  the  gunner  is  placed  in  a 


2o6  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

position  where  he  cannot  bring  his  weapon  to 
bear  and  he  will  have  to  turn  in  pursuit  before 
his  gun  can  be  brought  into  action  again. 
From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  an  aeroplane 
gunner  does  not  take  dehberate  aim,  as  would 
a  man  armed  with  a  rifle,  but  instead  fills  the 
air  in  the  path  of  his  opponent  with  showers  of 
bullets  in  the  hope  that  some  of  them  will  find 
the  mark.  Should  both  machines  be  armed 
with  machine-guns,  as  is  now  nearly  always  the 
case,  victory  is  often  a  question  of  quick  ma- 
noeuvring combined  with  a  considerable  element 
of  luck.  To  win  out  in  this  aerial  warfare,  a 
man  has  to  combine  the  quickness  of  a  fencer 
with  the  coolness  of  a  big-game  shot. 

One  of  the  greatest  dangers  the  military 
aviator  has  to  face  is  landing  after  night  has 
fallen.  Though  every  machine  has  a  small 
motor,  worked  by  the  wind,  which  generates 
enough  power  for  a  small  search-light,  the  light 
is  not  sufficiently  powerful  to  be  of  much  as- 
sistance in  gauging  the  distance  from  the  ground. 
Sunset  is,  therefore,  always  an  anxious  time  on 
the  aviation  fields,  nor  is  the  anxiety  at  an  end 
until  all  the  fliers  are  accounted  for.  As  the 
sun  begins  to  sink  into  the  west  the  returning 


o 

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O 

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Anti-aircraft  guns,  posted  outside  the  towns,  are  ready  to  give 
a  warm  reception  to  an  aerial  intruder. 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     207 

aviators  one  by  one  appear,  black  dots  against 
the  crimson  sky.  One  by  one  they  come  swoop- 
ing down  from  the  heavens  and  come  to  rest 
upon  the  ground.  TwiHght  merges  into  dusk 
and  dusk  turns  into  darkness,  but  one  of  the 
flying  men  has  not  yet  come.  The  four  corners 
of  the  aviation  field  are  marked  with  great  flares 
of  kerosene,  that  the  late  comer  may  be  guided 
home,  and  dow^n  the  middle  of  the  field  lanterns 
are  laid  out  in  the  form  of  a  huge  arrow  with 
the  head  pointing  into  the  wind,  while  search- 
lights, mounted  on  motor-cars,  alternately 
sweep  field  and  sky  with  their  white  beams. 
An.xiety  is  written  plainly  on  the  face  of  every 
one.  Have  the  Boches  brought  him  down  ? 
Has  he  lost  his  way  ^  Or  has  he  been  forced 
to  descend  elsewhere  from  engine  trouble  or 
lack  of  petrol?  "Hark!"  exclaims  some  one 
suddenly.  "He's  coming!"  and  in  the  sudden 
hush  that  ensues  you  hear,  from  somewhere  in 
the  upper  darkness,  a  motor's  deep,  low  throb. 
The  vertical  beams  of  the  search-lights  fall  and 
flood  the  level  plain  with  yellow  radiance. 
The  hum  of  the  motor  rises  into  a  roar  and 
then,  when  just  overhead,  abruptly  stops,  and 
down  through  the  darkness  slides  a  great  bird 


2o8  "VIVE  LA   FRANCE!'* 

which  is  darker  than  the  darkness  and  settles 
silently  upon  the  plain.  The  last  of  the  chick- 
ens has  come  home  to  roost. 

In  addition  to  the  aeroplanes  kept  upon  the 
front  for  purposes  of  bombardment,  photog- 
raphy, artillery  control,  and  scouting,  several 
squadrillas  are  kept  constantly  on  duty  in  the 
vicinity  of  Paris  and  certain  other  French 
cities  for  the  purpose  of  driving  oflF  marauding 
Taubes  or  Zeppehns.  Just  as  the  streets  of 
Paris  are  patrolled  by  gendarmes,  so  the  air- 
lanes  above  the  city  are  patrolled,  both  night 
and  day,  by  guarding  aeroplanes.  To  me  there 
was  something  wonderfully  inspiring  in  the 
thought  that  all  through  the  hours  of  darkness 
these  aerial  watchers  were  sweeping  in  great 
circles  above  the  sleeping  city,  guarding  it  from 
the  death  that  comes  in  the  night.  The  people 
of  the  United  States  do  not  fully  understand 
the  Zeppelin  raid  problem  with  which  those 
intrusted  with  the  defense  of  Paris  and  of 
London  are  confronted.  The  Zeppelins,  it 
must  be  remembered,  never  come  out  unless 
it  is  a  very  dark  night,  and  then  they  pass  over 
the  lines  at  a  height  of  two  miles  or  more, 
descending  only  when  they  are  above  the  city 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     209 

which  they  intend  to  attack.  The}^  slowly, 
silentl}'  settle  down  until  their  officers  can  get 
a  view  of  their  target  and  then  the  bombs  be- 
gin to  drop.  This  is  usually  the  first  warning 
that  the  townspeople  have  that  Zeppelins  are 
abroad,  though  it  occasionally  happens  that 
they  have  been  seen  or  heard  crossing  the  lines, 
in  which  case  the  city  is  warned  by  telephone, 
the  antiaircraft  guns  prepare  for  action,  and 
the  lights  in  the  streets  and  houses  are  put  out. 
Should  the  Zeppelins  succeed  in  getting  above 
the  city,  the  guarding  aeroplanes  go  up  after 
them  and  as  soon  as  the  search-lights  spot 
them  the  guns  open  fire  with  shrapnel.  The 
raiders  are  rarely  fired  on  by  the  antiaircraft 
guns  while  they  are  hovering  over  the  city, 
however,  as  experience  has  shown  that  more 
people  are  killed  by  faUing  shell  splinters  than 
by  the  enemy's  bombs.  Nor  do  the  French 
aeroplanes  dare  to  make  serious  attacks  until 
the  Zeppelin  is  clear  of  the  city,  for  it  is  not 
difficult  to  imagine  the  destruction  that  would 
result  were  one  of  these  monsters,  five  hun- 
dred feet  long  and  weighing  thirty-six  thou- 
sand pounds,  to  be  destroyed  and  its  flaming 
debris  to  fall  upon  the  city.    The  problem  that 


2IO  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE! 


j> 


faces  the  French  authorities,  therefore,  is  stop- 
ping the  ZeppeUns  before  they  reach  Paris, 
and  it  speaks  volumes  for  the  efficiency  of  the 
French  air  service  that  there  has  been  no 
ZeppeHn  raid  on  the  French  capital  for  nearly 
a  year. 

In  order  to  detect  the  approach  of  Zeppelins 
the  French  military  authorities  have  recently 
adopted  the  novel  expedient  of  estabhshing 
microphone  stations  at  several  points  in  and 
about  Paris,  these  delicately  attuned  instru- 
ments recording  with  unfaihng  accuracy  the 
throb  of  a  ZeppeHn's  or  an  aeroplane's  pro- 
pellers long  before  it  can  be  heard  by  the  hu- 
man ear. 

For  the  protection  of  London  the  British 
Government  has  built  an  aerial  navy  consisting 
of  two  types  of  aircraft — scouts  and  battle- 
planes. Practically  the  only  requirement  for 
the  scouting  planes  is  that  they  must  have  a 
speed  of  not  less  than  one  hundred  miles  an 
hour  and  a  fuel  capacity  for  at  least  a  six-hour 
flight,  thus  giving  them  a  cruising  radius  of 
three  hundred  miles.  That  is,  they  will  be 
able  to  raid  many  German  ports  and  cities 
and  return  with  ease  to  their  base  in  England. 
Their    small    size — they    are   only   thirty    feet 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS     211 

across  the  wings — and  great  speed  will  make 
them   almost   impossible   to   hit    and   it   is   ex- 
pected   that    antiaircraft    guns  will    be   practi- 
call}'  useless  against  them.   They  will  constantly 
circle  in  the  higher  levels,  as  near  the  Zeppelin 
bases  as  they  can  get,  and  the  minute  they  see 
the  giants   emerging   from  their  hangars  they 
will  be  off  to  England  to  give  the  alarm.    Their 
speed   being  double  that  of  a  Zeppelin,   they 
will    have    reached    England    long    before    the 
raider  arrives.    Then  the  new  "Canada"  type, 
each  carrying  a  ton  of  bombs,  will  go  out  to 
meet  the  Germans.     These  giant  biplanes,  one 
hundred  and  two  feet  across  the  wings,  with 
two    motors    developing    three    hundred    and 
twenty    horse-power,    have    a    speed    of   more 
than  ninety  miles  an  hour  and  can  overtake  a 
Zeppelin  as  a  motor-cycle  policeman  can  over- 
haul a  limousine.    They  are  fitted  with  the  new 
device  for  insuring  accuracy  in  bomb-dropping 
and,    with    their    superior    speed,    will    hang 
above  the  monster  dirigibles,  as  a  hawk  hangs 
above  a  hen-roost,  plumping  shell   after  shell 
into    the    great    silk    sausage    quivering    below 
them. 

Both    the  French  and    British  Governments 
now    have    a    considerable    number   of   hydro- 


212  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

aeroplanes  in  commission.  These  amphibious 
craft,  which  are  driven  by  two  motors  of  one 
hundred  and  sixty  horse-power  each  and  have 
a  speed  of  about  seventy-five  miles  an  hour, 
are  designed  primarily  for  the  hunting  of  sub- 
marines. Though  a  submarine  cannot  be  seen 
from  the  deck  of  a  vessel,  an  aviator  can  see  it, 
even  though  it  is  submerged  twenty  feet,  and  a 
bomb  dropped  near  it  will  cave  its  sides  in  by 
the  mere  force  of  the  explosion,  particularly  if 
that  bomb  is  loaded  with  two  hundred  pounds 
of  melinite,  as  are  the  ones  carried  by  the 
French  hydroaeroplanes. 

But  the  most  novel  of  all  the  uses  to  which 
the  aircraft  have  been  put  in  this  war  is  that 
of  dropping  spies  in  the  enemy's  territory.  On 
numerous  occasions  French  and  British  avia- 
tors have  flown  across  the  German  lines, 
carrying  with  them  an  intelligence  officer  dis- 
guised as  a  peasant  or  a  farm-hand,  and  have 
landed  him  at  some  remote  spot  where  the 
descent  of  an  aeroplane  is  scarcely  likely  to  at- 
tract the  attention  of  the  military  authorities. 
As  soon  as  the  aviator  has  landed  his  passenger 
he  ascends  again,  with  the  understanding,  how- 
ever, that  he  will  return  to  the  same  spot  a 


CONFLICT  IN  THE  CLOUDS    213 

day,  or  two  days,  or  a  week  later,  to  pick  up 
the  spy  and  carry  him  back  to  the  French  Hnes. 
The  exploits  of  some  of  these  secret  agents  thus 
dropped  from  the  sky  upon  enemy  soil  would 
make  the  wildest  fiction  seem  probable  and 
tame.  One  French  officer,  thus  landed  behind 
the  German  front  in  Flanders,  succeeded  in 
slowly  working  his  way  right  across  Belgium, 
gathering  information  as  he  went  as  to  the  re- 
sources of  the  Germans  and  the  disposition  of 
their  troops,  only  to  be  caught  just  as  he  was 
crossing  the  frontier  into  Holland.  Though 
the  Germans  expressed  unbounded  admiration 
for  his  coolness,  courage,  and  daring,  he  was 
none  the  less  a  spy.  He  died  before  the  rifles 
of  a  firing-party. 

It  has  repeatedly  been  said  that  in  this  war 
the  spirit  of  chivalry  does  not  exist,  and,  so 
far  as  the  land  forces  are  concerned,  this  is 
largely  true.  But  chivalry  still  exists  among 
the  fighters  of  the  air.  If,  for  example,  a  French 
aviator  is  forced  to  descend  hi  the  German 
lines,  either  because  his  machine  has  been 
damaged  by  gun-fire  or  from  engine  trouble,  a 
German  aviator  will  fly  over  the  French  lines, 
often   amid   a   storm  of  shrapnel,   and   drop   a 


214  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

little  cloth  bag  which  contains  a  note  recording 
the  name  of  the  missing  man,  or  if  not  his 
name  the  number  of  his  machine,  whether  he 
survived,  and  if  so  whether  he  is  wounded. 
Attached  to  the  "message  bag"  are  long 
pennants  of  colored  cloth,  which  flutter  out 
and  attract  the  attention  of  the  men  in  the 
neighborhood,  who  run  out  and  pick  up  the  bag 
when  it  lands.  It  is  at  once  taken  to  the 
nearest  officer,  who  opens  it  and  telephones  the 
message  it  contains  to  aviation  headquarters, 
so  that  it  not  infrequently  happens  that  the 
fate  of  a  flier  is  known  to  his  comrades  within 
a  few  hours  after  he  has  set  out  from  the  avia- 
tion field.  Perhaps  the  prettiest  exhibition  of 
chivalry  which  the  war  has  produced  was 
evoked  by  the  death  of  the  famous  French 
aviator,  Adolphe  Pegoud,  who  was  killed  by  a 
German  aviator  whom  he  attacked  during  a 
reconnoissance  near  Petite  Croix,  in  Alsace. 
The  next  day  a  German  aeroplane,  flying  at  a 
great  height,  appeared  over  Chavannes,  an 
Alsatian  village  on  the  old  frontier,  where 
Pegoud  was  buried,  and  dropped  a  wreath 
which  bore  the  inscription:  "To  Pegoud,  who 
died  like  a  hero,  from  his  adversary." 


VII 
THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY 

CORPORAL  EMILE  DUPONT,  having 
finished  a  most  unappetizing  and  un- 
satisfying breakfast,  consisting  of  a  cup 
of  lukewarm  chicory  and  a  half-loaf  of  soggy 
bread,  emerged  on  all  fours  from  the  hole  in 
the  ground  which  for  many  months  had  been 
his  home  and,  standing  upright  in  the  trench, 
lighted  a  cigarette.  At  that  instant  something 
came  screaming  out  of  nowhere  to  burst,  in  a 
cloud  of  acrid  smoke  and  a  shower  of  steel 
splinters,  directly  over  the  trench  in  which 
Emile  was  standing.  Immediately  the  sky 
seemed  to  fall  upon  Emile  and  crush  him. 
When  he  returned  to  consciousness  a  few  sec- 
onds later  he  found  himself  crumpled  up  in  an 
angle  of  the  trench  like  an  empty  kit-bag  that 
has  been  hurled  into  a  corner  of  a  room.  He 
felt  curiously  weak  and  nauseated;  he  ached 
in  every  bone  in  his  body;  his  head  throbbed 
and  pounded  until  he  thought  that  the  top  of 

215 


2i6  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

his  skull  was  coming  off.  Still,  he  was  alive, 
and  that  was  something.  He  fumbled  for  the 
cigarette  that  he  had  been  lighting,  but  there 
was  a  curious  sensation  of  numbness  in  his 
right  hand.  He  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  move 
it.  Very  slowly,  very  painfully  he  turned  his 
head  so  that  his  eyes  travelled  out  along  his 
blue-sleeved  arm  until  they  reached  the  point 
where  his  hand  ought  to  be.  But  the  hand 
wasn't  there.  It  had  quite  disappeared.  His 
wrist  lay  in  a  pool  of  something  crimson  and 
warm  and  sticky  which  widened  rapidly  as  he 
looked  at  it.  His  hand  was  gone,  there  was  no 
doubting  that.  Still,  it  didn't  interest  him 
greatly;  in  fact,  it  might  have  been  some  other 
man's  hand  for  all  he  cared.  His  head  throbbed 
like  the  devil  and  he  was  very,  very  tired. 
Rather  dimly  he  heard  voices  and,  as  through  a 
haze,  saw  figures  bending  over  him.  He  felt 
some  one  tugging  at  the  little  first-aid  packet 
which  every  soldier  carries  in  the  breast  of  his 
tunic,  he  felt  something  being  tied  very  tightly 
around  his  arm  above  the  elbow,  and  finally  he 
had  a  vague  recollection  of  being  dragged  into 
a  dug-out,  where  he  lay  for  hours  while  the 
shell-storm  raged  and  howled  outside.     Along 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    217 

toward  nightfall,  when  the  bombardment  had 
died  down,  two  soldiers,  wearing  on  their 
arms  white  brassards  with  red  crosses,  lifted 
him  onto  a  stretcher  and  carried  him  between 
interminable  walls  of  brown  earth  to  another 
and  a  larger  dug-out  which  he  recognized  as  a 
poste  de  secours.  After  an  hour  of  waiting, 
because  there  were  other  w^ounded  men  who 
had  to  be  attended  to  first,  the  stretcher  on 
which  Emile  lay  was  lifted  onto  a  table  over 
which  hung  a  lantern.  A  bearded  man,  wear- 
ing the  cap  of  a  medical  officer,  and  with  a 
white  apron  up  to  his  neck,  briskly  unwound 
the  bandages  which  hid  the  place  where  Emile's 
right  hand  should  have  been.  "It'll  have  to  be 
taken  oflF  a  bit  further  up,  mon  hrave^'  said  the 
surgeon,  in  much  the  same  tone  that  a  tailor 
would  use  in  discussing  the  shortening  of  a 
coat.  "You  seem  to  be  in  pretty  fair  shape, 
though,  so  we'll  just  give  you  a  new  dressing, 
and  send  you  along  to  the  field  ambulance, 
where  they  have  more  facilities  for  amputat- 
ing than  we  have  here."  Despite  the  pain, 
which  had  now  become  agonizing,  Emile 
watched  with  a  sort  of  detached  admiration 
the  neatness  and  despatch  with  which  the  sur- 


2i8  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

geon  wound  the  white  bandages  around  the 
wound.  It  reminded  him  of  a  British  soldier 
putting  on  his  puttees.  "Just  a  moment,  my 
friend,"  said  the  surgeon,  when  the  dressing 
was  completed,  "we'll  give  you  a  jab  of  this 
before  you  go,  to  frighten  away  the  tetanus," 
and  in  the  muscles  of  his  shoulder  Emile  felt  the 
prick  of  a  hypodermic  needle.  An  orderly 
tied  to  a  button  of  his  coat  a  pink  tag  on  which 
something — he  could  not  see  what — had  been 
scrawled  by  the  surgeon,  and  two  hrancardiers 
lifted  the  stretcher  and  carried  him  out  into 
the  darkness.  From  the  swaying  of  the 
stretcher  and  the  muffled  imprecations  of  the 
bearers,  he  gathered  that  he  was  being  taken 
across  the  ploughed  field  which  separated  the 
trenches  from  the  highway  where  the  ambu- 
lances were  waiting.  "This  cleans  'em  up  for 
to-night,"  said  one  of  the  bearers,  as  he  slipped 
the  handles  of  the  stretcher  into  the  grooved 
supports  of  the  ambulance  and  pushed  it 
smoothly  home.  "Thank  God  for  that," 
said  the  ambulance  driver,  as  he  viciously 
cranked  his  car.  "I  thought  I  was  going  to  be 
kept  here  all  night.  It's  time  we  cleared  out 
anyway.    The  Boches  spotted  me  with  a  rocket 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    219 

they  sent  up  a  while  back,  and  they've  been 
dropping  shells  a  little  too  close  to  be  pleasant. 
Well,  s'long.  When  I  get  this  bunch  delivered 
I'm  going  to  turn  in  and  get  a  night's  sleep." 

The  road,  being  paved  with  cobblestones, 
was  not  as  smooth  as  it  should  have  been  for 
wounded  men.  Emile,  who  had  been  awakened 
to  full  consciousness  by  the  night  air  and  by 
a  drink  of  brandy  one  of  the  orderlies  at  the 
poste  de  secours  had  given  him,  felt  something 
warm  and  sticky  falling  .  .  .  drip  .  .  .  drip 
.  .  .  drip  .  .  .  upon  his  face.  In  the  dim  light 
he  was  at  first  unable  to  discover  where  it  came 
from.  Then  he  saw.  It  was  dripping  through 
the  brown  canvas  of  the  stretcher  that  hung 
above  him.  He  tried  to  call  to  the  ambulance 
driver,  but  his  voice  was  lost  in  the  noise  of 
the  machine.  The  field-hospital  was  only  three 
miles  back  of  the  trench  in  which  he  had  been 
wounded,  but  by  the  time  he  arrived  there, 
what  with  the  jolting  and  the  pain  and  the 
terrible  thirst  which  comes  from  loss  of  blood 
and  that  ghastly  drip  .  .  .  drip  .  .  .  drip  in 
his  face,  Emile  was  in  a  state  of  both  mental 
and  physical  collapse.  They  took  him  into  a 
large    tent,    dimly    lighted    by    lanterns   which 


220  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

showed  him  many  other  stretchers  with  silent 
or  groaning  forms,  all  ticketed  like  himself, 
lying  upon  them.  After  considerable  delay  a 
young  officer  came  around  with  a  note-book 
and  looked  at  the  tag  they  had  tied  on  him  at 
the  dressing-station.  On  it  was  scrawled  the 
word  "urgent."  That  admonition  didn't  pre- 
vent Emile's  having  to  wait  two  hours  before 
he  was  taken  into  a  tent  so  brilliantly  illumi- 
nated by  an  arc-lamp  that  the  glare  hurt  his 
eyes.  When  they  laid  him  on  a  narrow  white 
table  so  that  the  light  fell  full  upon  him  he  felt 
as  though  he  were  on  the  stage  of  a  theatre  and 
the  spot-light  had  been  turned  upon  him.  An 
orderly  with  a  sharp  knife  deftly  slashed  away 
the  sleeve  of  Emile's  coat,  leaving  the  arm  bare 
to  the  shoulder,  while  another  orderly  clapped 
over  his  mouth  and  nose  a  sort  of  funnel. 

When  he  returned  to  consciousness  he  found 
himself  again  in  an  ambulance  rocking  and 
swaying  over  those  agonizing  pave  roads.  The 
throbbing  of  his  head  and  the  pain  in  his  arm 
and  the  pitching  of  the  vehicle  made  him  nau- 
seated. There  were  three  other  wounded  men 
in  the  ambulance  and  they  had  been  nauseated 
too.     It  was  not  a  pleasant  journey.     After 


THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY  221 

what  seemed  to  Emile  and  his  companions  in 
misery    an    interminable   time,   the    ambulance 
came  to   a   stop  in  front  of  a  railway-station. 
At   least    it   had   once   been   a  railway-station, 
but  over  the  door  between  the  drooping  Red 
Cross  flags,  was  the  sign  "Hopital  d'Evacuation 
No.  31."     Two  brancardiers  lifted  out  Emile's 
stretcher — the  same  one,  by  the  way,  on  which 
he  had  been  carried  from  the  trenches  twenty- 
four  hours   before — and   set   it   down   in  what 
had    been    the   station   waiting-room.      It   was 
still   a  waiting-room,   but   all  those  who  were 
so  patiently  and  uncomplainingly  waiting  in  it 
were  wounded.     Two  women,   wearing  white 
smocks    and    caps    and   with   the   ever-present 
red  cross  upon  their  sleeves,  came  in  carrying 
trays    loaded    with    cups    of    steaming    soup. 
While  an  orderly  supported  Emile's  head  one 
of  the  women  held  a  cup  of  soup  to  his  lips. 
He  drank  it  greedily.     It  was  the  best  thing  he 
had  ever  tasted   and   he  said  so.     Then  they 
gave  him  a  glass  of  harsh,  red  wine.    After  that 
he   felt   much    better.     After  a   time   a   doctor 
came   in   and   glanced   at   the   tags  which   had 
been  tied  on   him  at  the  poste  de  secours  and 
at   the   field-hospital.     "You've   a   little  fever, 


222  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

my  lad,"  said  he,  "but  I  guess  you  can  stand 
the  trip  to  Paris.  You'll  be  better  off  there 
than  you  would  be  here."  If  Emile  Hves  to 
be  a  hundred  he  will  never  forget  that  journey. 
It  was  made  in  a  box-car  which  had  been  con- 
verted to  the  use  of  the  wounded  by  putting 
in  racks  to  hold  the  stretchers  and  cutting 
windows  in  the  sides.  In  the  centre  was  a 
small  stove  on  which  the  orderly  in  charge 
boiled  tea.  In  the  car  were  fifteen  other 
wounded  men.  On  the  journey  four  of  them 
died.  The  car,  which  was  without  springs, 
rolled  like  a  ship  in  a  storm.  The  jolting  was 
far  worse  than  that  in  the  ambulances  on  the 
'pave  roads  had  been.  Emile's  head  reeled  from 
weariness  and  exhaustion;  his  arm  felt  as 
though  it  were  being  held  in  a  white-hot  flame; 
he  was  attacked  by  the  intolerable  thirst  which 
characterizes  amputation  cases,  and  begged  for 
water,  and  when  it  was  given  him  pleaded 
desperately  for  more,  more,  more.  Most  of 
the  time  he  was  out  of  his  head  and  babbled 
incoherently  of  fooHsh,  inconsequential  things. 
It  took  twenty  hours  for  the  hospital  train  to 
reach  Paris,  for  a  great  movement  of  troops 
was  in  progress,  and  when  well  men  are  being 


THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY  223 

rushed  to  the  front  the  wounded  ones  who  are 
coming  away  from  it  must  wait.  When  the 
train  finally  pulled  under  the  sooty  glass  roof 
of  the  Paris  station,  Emile  was  hovering  be- 
tween life  and  death.  He  had  a  hazy,  in- 
distinct recollection  of  being  taken  from  the 
ill-smelling  freight-car  to  an  ambulance — the 
third  in  which  he  had  been  in  less  than  forty- 
eight  hours;  of  skimming  pleasantly,  silently 
over  smooth  pavements;  of  the  ambulance 
entering  the  porte-cochere  of  a  great  white 
building  that  looked  like  a  hotel  or  school. 
Here  he  was  nor  kept  waiting.  Nurses  with 
skilful  fingers  drew  off  his  clothes — the  filthy, 
blood-soaked,  mud-stained,  vermin-infested, 
foul-smelling  garments  that  he  had  not  had 
off  for  many  weeks.  He  was  lowered,  ever  so 
gently,  into  a  tub  filled  with  warm  water. 
Bo7i  Dieu,  but  it  felt  good  !  It  was  the  first 
warm  bath  that  he  had  had  in  more  than  a  year. 
It  was  worth  being  wounded  for.  Then  a 
pair  of  flannel  pajamas,  a  fresh,  soft  bed,  such 
as  he  had  not  known  since  the  war  began,  and 
pink-cheeked  nurses  in  crisp,  white  linen  slip- 
ping about  noiselessly.  While  Emile  lay  back 
on  his  pillows  and  puffed  a  cigarette  a  doctor 


224  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

came  in  and  dressed  his  wound.  "Don't  worry 
about  yourself,  my  man,"  he  said  cheerily, 
"you'll  get  along  finely.  In  a  week  or  so  we'll 
be  sending  you  back  to  your  family."  Where- 
upon, Corporal  Emile  Dupont  turned  on  his 
pillow  with  a  great  sigh  of  content.  He  won- 
dered dimly,  as  he  fell  asleep,  if  it  would  be 
hard  to  find  work  which  a  one-armed  man 
could  do. 

From  the  imaginary  but  wholly  typical  case 
just  given,  in  which  we  have  traced  the  course 
of  a  wounded  man  from  the  spot  where  he  fell 
to  the  final  hospital,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
system  of  the  Service  de  Sante  Militaire,  as 
the  medical  service  of  the  French  army  is 
known,  though  cumbersome  and  complicated 
in  certain  respects,  nevertheless  works — and 
works  well.  In  understanding  the  French 
system  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  the 
wounded  man  has  to  be  shifted  through  two 
army  zones,  front  and  rear,  both  of  which  are 
under  the  direct  control  of  the  commander- 
in-chief,  to  the  interior  zone  of  the  country, 
with  its  countless  hospitals,  which  is  under 
the  direction  of  the  Ministry  of  War. 


THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY  225 

As  soon  as  a  soldier  falls  he  drags  himself, 
if  he  is  able,  to  some  sheltered  spot,  or  his 
comrades  carry  him  there,  and  with  the  "first- 
aid"  packet,  carried  in  the  breast  pocket  of 
the  tunic,  an  endeavor  is  made  to  give  the 
wound  temporary  treatment.  In  the  British 
service  this  "first-aid"  kit  consists  of  a  small 
tin  box,  not  much  larger  than  a  cigarette-case, 
containing  a  bottle  of  iodine  crystals  and  a 
bottle  of  alcohol  wrapped  up  in  a  roll  of  aseptic 
bandage  gauze.  Meanwhile  word  has  been 
passed  along  the  Ime  that  the  services  of  the 
surgeon  are  needed,  for  each  regiment  has 
one  and  sometimes  two  medical  officers  on 
duty  in  the  trenches.  It  may  so  happen  that 
the  trench  section  has  its  own  poste  de  secours, 
or  first-aid  dressing-station,  in  which  case  the 
man  is  at  once  taken  there.  The  medical  of- 
ficer dresses  the  man's  wound,  perhaps  gives 
him  a  h\podermic  to  lessen  the  pain,  and 
otherwise  makes  him  as  comfortable  as  possible 
under  the  circumstances.  His  wounds  tem- 
porarily dressed,  if  there  is  a  dug-out  at  hand, 
he  is  taken  into  it.  If  not,  he  is  laid  in  such 
shelter  as  the  trench  affords,  and  there  he 
usually   has   to  lie   until  night   comes   and   he 


226  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

can  be  removed  in  comparative  safety;  for, 
particularly  in  the  flat  country  of  Artois  and 
Flanders,  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  remove 
the  wounded  except  under  the  screen  of  dark- 
ness, and  even  then  it  is  frequently  an  ex- 
tremely hazardous  proceeding,  for  the  German 
gunners  apparently  do  their  best  to  drop 
their  shells  on  the  ambulances  and  stretcher- 
parties.  As  soon  as  night  falls  a  dressing- 
station  is  established  at  a  point  as  close  as 
possible  behind  the  trenches,  the  number  of  sur- 
geons, dressers,  and  stretcher-bearers  sent  out 
depending  upon  the  number  of  casualties  as 
reported  by  telephone  from  the  trenches  to 
headquarters.  The  wounded  man  is  trans- 
ported on  a  stretcher  or  a  wheeled  litter  to  the 
dressing-station,  where  his  wounds  are  exam- 
ined by  the  light  of  electric  torches  and,  if 
necessary,  redressed.  If  he  has  any  fractured 
bones  they  are  made  fast  in  sphnts  or  pieces 
of  zinc  or  iron  wire — anything  that  will  enable 
him  to  stand  transportation.  Though  the 
dressing-station  is,  wherever  possible,  estab- 
Hshed  in  a  farmhouse,  in  a  grove,  behind  a 
wall,  or  such  other  protection  as  the  region  may 
afford,    it   is,    nevertheless,    often    in    extreme 


THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY  227 

danger.  I  recall  one  case,  in  Flanders,  where 
the  flashing  of  the  torches  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  German  gunners,  who  dropped  a 
shell  squarely  into  a  dressing-station,  killing  all 
the  surgeons  and  stretcher-bearers,  and  putting 
half  a  dozen  of  the  wounded  out  of  their 
misery.  As  soon  as  the  wounded  man  has 
passed  through  the  dressing-station,  he  is  car- 
ried, usually  over  very  rough  ground,  to  the 
point  on  the  road  where  the  motor-ambulances 
are  waiting  and  is  whirled  off  to  the  division 
ambulance,  which  corresponds  to  the  field- 
hospital  of  the  British  and  American  armies. 
These  division  ambulances  (it  should  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  term  ambulance  in  French 
means  "military  hospital")  do  as  complete 
work  as  can  be  expected  so  near  the  front. 
They  are  usually  set  up  only  four  or  five  miles 
back  of  the  firing-line,  and  have  a  regular 
medical  and  nursing  staff,  instruments,  and, 
in  some  cases.  X-ray  apparatus  for  operations. 
As  a  rule,  only  light  emergency  operations  are 
performed  in  these  ambulances  of  the  front — 
light  skull  trepanning,  removal  of  splintered 
bones,  disinfection,  and  immobilizing  of  the 
wounded  parts. 


228  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  it  was  an  ac- 
cepted principle  of  the  French  army  surgeons 
not  to  operate  at  the  front,  but  simply  to  dress 
the  wounds  so  as  to  permit  of  speedy  trans- 
portation to  the  rear,  for  the  division  ambu- 
lances, being  without  heat  or  light  or  sterilizing 
plants  of  their  own,  had  no  facilities  for  many 
urgent  operations  or  for  night  work.  Hence, 
though  there  was  no  lack  of  surgical  aid  at  the 
front,  major  operations  were  not  possible,  and 
thousands  of  men  died  who,  could  they  have 
been  operated  on  immediately,  might  have  been 
saved.  This  grave  fault  in  the  French  medical 
service  has  now  been  remedied,  however,  by 
the  automobile  surgical  formations  created  by 
Doctor  Marcille.  Their  purpose  is  to  bring 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  spot  where  fighting  is 
in  progress  and  where  men  are  being  wounded 
the  equivalent  of  a  great  city  emergency 
hospital,  with  its  own  sterilization  plant,  and 
an  operating-room  heated  and  lighted  power- 
fully night  and  day.  This  equipment  is  ex- 
tremely mobile,  ready  to  begin  work  even  in  the 
open  country  within  an  hour  of  its  arrival,  and 
capable  of  moving  on  with  the  same  rapidity  to 
any  point  where  its  services  may  be  required. 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    229 

The  arrangement  of  these  operating-rooms  on 
wheels  is  as  compact  and  ingenious  as  a  Pull- 
man sleeping-car.  The  sterilization  plant,  which 
works  b}'  superheated  steam,  is  on  an  automo- 
bile chassis,  the  surgeons  taking  their  instru- 
ments, compresses,  aprons,  and  blouses  im- 
mediately from  one  of  the  six  iron  sheets  of  the 
autoclave  as  the\'  operate.  Si.x  operations  can 
be  carried  on  without  stopping — and  during  the 
sixth  the  iron  sheets  are  resterilized  to  begin 
again.  The  same  boiler  heats  a  smaller  auto- 
clave for  sterilizing  rubber  gloves  and  water, 
and  also,  by  means  of  a  powerful  radiator, 
heats  the  operating-room.  This  is  an  im- 
permeable tent,  with  a  large  glass  skylight  for 
day  and  a  200-candle  power  electric  light  for 
night,  the  motor  generating  the  electricity. 
Another  car  contains  the  radiograph  plant, 
while  the  regular  ambulances  provide  phar- 
macy and  other  supplies  and  see  to  the  further 
transportation  of  the  wounded  who  have  been 
operated  on.  Of  seventy  operations,  which 
would  have  all  been  impossible  without  these 
surgical  automobile  units,  fifty-five  were  suc- 
cessful. In  cases  of  abdominal  wounds,  which 
have  usually  been  fatal  in  previous  wars,  fifty 


230  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

per    cent    of   the    operations    thus    performed 
saved  the  lives  of  the  wounded. 

Leaving  the  zone  of  actual  operations,  the 
wounded  man  now  enters  the  army  rear  zone, 
where,  at  the  heads  of  the  lines  of  communi- 
cation, hospital  trains  or  hospital  canal-boats 
are  waiting  for  him.  The  beginning  of  the 
war  found  France  wholly  unprepared  as  re- 
gards modernly  equipped  hospital  trains,  of 
which  she  possessed  only  five,  while  Russia 
had  thirty-two,  Austria  thirty-three,  and  Ger- 
many forty.  Thanks  to  the  energy  of  the  great 
French  railway  companies,  the  number  has 
been  somewhat  increased,  but  France  still  has 
mainly  to  rely  on  improvised  sanitary  trains  for 
the  transport  of  her  wounded.  There  are  in 
operation  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  these 
improvised  trains,  made  up,  when  possible,  of 
the  long  baggage-cars  of  what  were  before  the 
war  the  international  express-trains.  As  these 
cars  are  well  hung,  are  heated,  have  soft  West- 
inghouse  brakes,  and  have  corridors  which  per- 
mit of  the  doctors  going  from  car  to  car  while 
the  train  is  in  motion,  they  answer  the  purpose 
to  which  they  have  been  put  tolerably  well. 
But  when  heavy  fighting  is  in  progress,  rolling- 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    231 

stock  of  every  description  has  to  be  utilized 
for  the  transport  of  the  wounded.  Those  who 
can  sit  up  without  too  much  discomfort  are 
put  in  ordinary  passenger-cars.  But  in  addi- 
tion to  these  the  Service  de  Sante  has  been 
compelled  to  use  thousands  of  freight  and 
cattle  cars  glassed  up  at  the  sides  and  with  a 
stove  in  the  middle.  The  stretchers  containing 
the  most  serious  cases  are,  by  means  of  loops 
into  which  the  handles  of  the  stretchers  fit, 
laid  in  two  rows,  one  above  the  other,  at  the 
ends  of  each  car,  while  those  who  are  able  to 
sit  up  are  gathered  in  the  centre.  Each  car  is 
in  charge  of  an  orderly  who  keeps  water  and 
soups  constantly  heated  on  the  stove.  Any  one 
who  has  travelled  for  any  distance  in  a  freight  or 
cattle  car  will  readily  appreciate,  however,  how 
great  must  be  the  sufferings  of  the  wounded 
men  thus  transported.  Taking  advantage  of 
the  network  of  canals  and  rivers  which  covers 
France,  the  medical  authorities  of  the  army 
have  also  utilized  canal-boats  for  the  transport 
of  the  blesses — a  method  of  transportation 
which,  though  slow,  is  very  easy.  Every  few 
hours  these  hospital  trains  or  boats  come  to 
"infirmary   stations,"   established   by   the   Red 


232  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

Cross,  where  the  wounded  are  given  food  and 
drink,  and  .their  dressing  is  looked  after, 
while  at  zM  very  end  of  the  army  zones  there 
are  "regulator  stations,"  where  the  "evacua- 
tion hospitals"  are  placed.  Here  is  where  the 
sorting  system  comes  in.  There  are  wounded 
whose  condition  has  become  so  aggravated  that 
it  is  out  of  the  question  for  them  to  stand  a 
longer  journey,  and  these  remain.  There  are 
lightly  wounded,  who,  with  proper  attention, 
will  be  as  well  as  ever  in  a  few  days,  and  these 
are  sent  to  a  depot  des  eclopes,  or,  as  the  soldiers 
term  it,  a  "limpet's  halt."  Then  there  are  the 
others  who,  if  they  are  to  recover,  will  require 
long  and  careful  treatment  and  difficult  opera- 
tions. These  go  on  to  the  final  hospitals  of 
the  interior  zone:  military  hospitals,  auxiliary 
hospitals,  civil  hospitals  militarized,  and  "ben- 
evolent hospitals"  such  as  the  great  American 
Ambulance  at  Neuilly. 

No  account  of  the  work  of  caring  for  the 
wounded  would  be  complete  without  at  least 
passing  mention  of  the  American  Ambulance, 
which,  founded  by  Americans,  with  an  American 
staff  and  an  American  equipment,  and  main- 
tained by  American  generosity,  has  come  to 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    233 

be  recognized  as  the  highest  type  of  military 
hospital  in  existence.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  Americans  in  Paris,  inspired  by  the  record 
of  the  American  Ambulance  in  1870,  and  fore- 
seeing the  needs  of  the  enormous  number  of 
wounded  which  would  soon  come  pouring  in, 
conceived  the  idea  of  establishing  a  military 
hospital  for  the  treatment  of  the  wounded,  irre- 
spective of  nationality.  The  French  Govern- 
ment placed  at  their  disposal  a  large  and  nearly 
completed  school-building  in  the  suburb  of 
Neuilly,  just  outside  the  walls  of  Paris.  Be- 
fore the  war  had  been  in  progress  a  month  this 
building  had  been  transformed  into  perhaps 
the  most  up-to-the-minute  military  hospital 
in  Europe,  equipped  with  X-ray  apparatus, 
ultra  violet-ray  sterilizing  plants,  a  giant 
magnet  for  removing  fragments  of  shell  from 
wounds,  a  pathological  laboratory,  and  the 
finest  department  of  dental  surgery  in  the 
world.  The  feats  of  surgical  legerdemain  per- 
formed in  this  latter  department  are,  indeed, 
almost  beyond  belief.  The  American  dental 
surgeons  assert — and  they  have  repeatedly 
made  their  assertion  good — that,  even  though 
a  man's  entire  face  has  been  blown  away,  they 


234  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

can  construct  a  new  and  presentable  counte- 
nance, provided  the  hinges  of  the  jaw  remain. 
Beginning  with  170  beds,  by  November, 
191 5,  the  hospital  had  600  beds  and  in  addi- 
tion has  organized  an  "advanced  hospital," 
with  250  beds,  known  as  Hospital  B,  at  Juilly, 
which  is  maintained  through  the  generosity  of 
Mrs.  Harry  Payne  Whitney;  a  field-hospital, 
of  the  same  pattern  as  that  used  by  the  United 
States  Army,  with  108  beds;  and  two  con- 
valescent hospitals  at  St.  Cloud;  the  staff 
of  this  remarkable  organization  comprising 
doctors,  surgeons,  graduate  and  auxiliary  nurses, 
orderhes,  stretcher-bearers,  ambulance  drivers, 
cooks,  and  other  employees  to  the  number  of 
seven  hundred.  Perhaps  the  most  picturesque 
feature  of  the  American  hospital  is  its  remark- 
able motor-ambulance  service,  which  consists 
of  130  cars  and  160  drivers.  The  ambulances, 
which  are  for  the  most  part  Ford  cars  with 
specially  designed  bodies,  have  proved  so  ex- 
tremely practical  and  efficient  that  the  type 
has  been  widely  copied  by  the  AlHed  armies. 
They  serve  where  they  are  most  needed,  being 
sent  out  in  units  (each  unit  consisting  of  a 
staff  car,  a  supply  car,  and  five  ambulances) 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    235 

upon  the  requisition  of  the  military  authorities. 
The  young  men  who  drive  the  ambulances 
and  who,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,  not  only 
serve  without  pay  but  even  pay  their  own 
passage  from  America  and  provide  their  own 
uniforms,  represent  all  that  is  best  in  American 
life:  among  them  are  men  from  the  great  uni- 
versities both  East  and  West,  men  from  the 
hunt  clubs  of  Long  Island  and  Virginia,  lawyers, 
novelists,  polo-players,  big-game  hunters,  cow- 
punchers,  while  the  inspector  of  the  ambulance 
service  is  a  former  assistant  treasurer  of  the 
United  States.  American  Ambulance  units 
are  stationed  at  many  points  on  the  western 
battle-line — I  have  seen  them  at  work  in 
Flanders,  in  the  Argonne,  and  in  Alsace — 
the  risks  taken  by  the  drivers  in  their  work  of 
bringing  in  the  wounded  and  their  coolness 
under  fire  having  won  for  them  among  the 
soldiers  the  admiring  title  of  "bullet  biters." 

The  British  system  of  handling  the  wounded 
is  along  the  same  general  lines  as  that  of  the 
French,  the  chief  difference  being  in  the  methods 
of  sorting,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  medical  corps 
work  in  this  war.  The  British  system,  which, 
as   some   one   has   sarcastically   remarked,   in- 


236  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

volves  reference  to  "Burke's  Peerage,"  "Who's 
Who,"  and  the  "Army  List,"  is  in  itself  ex- 
tremely exhausting  and  entails  much  need- 
less suffering.  The  method  of  sorting  in  the 
French  army  is,  on  the  other  hand,  simplicity 
itself,  and  throughout  all  its  stages  is  as  rigidly 
impartial  as  the  customs  examination  at  an 
American  port,  a  wounded  officer  receiving 
neither  more  nor  less  attention  than  a  wounded 
soldier. 

Sorting,  as  practised  by  the  British,  starts 
at  the  very  first  step  in  the  progress  of  a 
wounded  man,  which  is  the  dressing-station  in 
or  immediately  back  of  the  trenches,  where 
only  those  cases  absolutely  demanding  it  are 
dressed  and  where  only  the  most  imperative 
operations  are  performed.  The  second  step 
is  the  field-hospital,  where  all  but  a  few  of  the 
slight  wounds  are  dressed,  and  where  opera- 
tions that  must  be  done  before  the  men  can  be 
passed  farther  back  are  performed.  The  third 
step  is  the  clearing  hospital,  at  the  head  of  rail- 
way communication.  Here  the  man  receives 
the  minimum  of  medical  attention  before  being 
passed  on  to  the  hospital  train  which  conveys 
him  to  one  of  the  great  base  hospitals  on  the 


"Two  soldiers  lifted  him  onto  a  stretcher  and  carried  him  between 
interminable  walls  of  brown  earth  to  thi-  dressing-station." 


m 

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O 


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THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY    237 

coast,  where  every  one,  whether  seriously  or 
sHghtly  wounded,  can  at  last  receive  treat- 
ment. To  the  wounded  Tommy,  the  base  hos- 
pital is  the  half-way  house  to  home,  where  he 
is  cared  for  until  he  is  able  to  stand  the  jour- 
ney across  the  Channel  to  England. 

The  real  barometer  of  battle  is  the  clearing 
hospital,  for  one  can  always  tell  by  the  num- 
ber of  cases  coming  in  whether  there  is  heavy 
fighting  in  progress.  As  both  field  and  clear- 
ing hospitals  move  with  the  armies,  they  must 
not  only  always  get  rid  of  their  wounded  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment,  but  they  must 
always  be  prepared  for  quick  movements  back- 
ward or  forward.  Either  a  retreat  or  an  offen- 
sive movement  necessitates  quick  action  on 
the  part  of  the  Army  Medical  Corps,  for  it  is 
a  big  job  to  dismantle  a  great  hospital,  pack  it 
up,  and  start  the  motor-transport  within  an 
hour  after  the  order  to  move  is  received.  It 
would  be  a  big  job  without  the  wounded. 

In  the  French  lines  the  hopital  d' evacuation 
is  frequently  established  in  a  freight  station  or 
warehouse  in  the  midst  of  the  railway  yards, 
so  as  to  facilitate  the  loading  of  the  hospital 
trains.     This  arrangement  has  its  drawbacks, 


238  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

however,  for  the  hospital  is  liable  to  be  bom- 
barded by  aeroplanes  or  artillery  without  warn- 
ing, as  it  is  a  principle  recognized — and  prac- 
tised— by  all  the  belligerent  nations  that  it  is 
perfectly  legitimate  to  shell  a  station  or  rail- 
way base  in  order  to  interfere  with  the  troops, 
suppHes,    and    ammunition    going    forward    to 
the   armies   in   the   field.     That   a   hospital   is 
quartered   in   the   station   is    unfortunate   but 
must    be   disregarded.     At    Dunkirk,    for   ex- 
ample, which  is  a  fortified  town   and   a  base 
of  the  very  first  importance,  there  was  nothing 
unethical,  from   a  mihtary  view-point,  in   the 
Germans  shelling  the  railway  yards,  even  though 
a   number  of  wounded   in   the   hospital   there 
lost  their  lives.     The  British  avoid  this  danger 
by  establishing  their  clearing  hospitals  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  rail-head  towns,  and  as  far  from 
the  station  as  possible,  which,  however,  neces- 
sitates one  more  transfer  for  the  wounded  man. 
In  this  war  the  progress  made  in  the  science 
of  heaHng  has  kept  pace  with,  if  indeed  it  has 
not   outdistanced,    the   progress   made   in   the 
science  of  destruction.     There  is,  for  example, 
the  solution  of  hypochlorite  of  soda,  introduced 
by  Doctor  Dakin  and   Doctor  Alexis  Carrel, 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    239 

which,  though  not  a  new  invention,  is  being 
used  with  marvellous  results  for  the  irrigation 
of  wounds  and  the  prevention  of  suppuration. 
There  is  the  spinal  anaesthesia,  used  mainly  in 
the  difficult  abdominal  cases,  a  minute  quan- 
tity' of  which,  injected  into  the  spine  of  the 
patient,  causes  all  sensation  to  disappear  up 
to  the  arms,  so  that,  provided  he  is  prevented 
by  a  screen  from  seeing  what  is  going  on,  an 
operation  below  that  level  may  be  performed 
while  the  patient,  wholly  unconscious  of  what 
is  happening,  is  reading  a  paper  or  smoking  a 
cigarette.  Owing  to  failure  to  disinfect  the 
wounds  at  the  front,  many  of  the  cases  reach- 
ing the  hospitals  in  the  early  days  of  the  war 
were  found  to  be  badly  septic,  the  infection 
being  due,  curiousl}'  enough,  to  the  nature  of 
the  soil  of  the  country,  the  region  of  the  Aisne, 
for  example,  apparently  being  saturated  with 
the  tetanus  germ.  So  the  doctors  invented  an 
antitetanus  serum,  with  which  a  soldier  can 
inoculate  himself  and,  as  a  result,  the  cases  of 
tetanus  have  been  reduced  by  half.  It  was 
found  that  man}'  wounded  men  failed  to  re- 
cover because  of  the  minute  pieces  of  shell  re- 
maining  in    their   bodies,    so   there  was   intro- 


240  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

duced  the  giant  magnet  which,  when  connected 
with  the  probe  in  the  surgeon's  hand,  unerringly 
attracts  and  draws  out  any  fragments  of  metal 
that  may  remain  in  the  wound.  Still  another 
ingenious  invention  produced  by  the  war  is  the 
bell,  or  buzzer,  which  rings  when  the  surgeon's 
probe  approaches  a  foreign  substance. 

Though  before  the  war  began  European 
army  surgeons  were  thoroughly  conversant 
with  the  best  methods  of  treating  shell,  sabre, 
and  bullet  wounds  and  the  innumerable  dis- 
eases peculiar  to  armies,  the  war  has  produced 
one  weapon  of  which  they  had  never  so  much 
as  heard  before,  and  the  effects  of  which  they 
were  at  first  wholly  unable  to  combat.  I  refer 
to  the  asphyxiating  gas.  If  you  fail  to  under- 
stand what  "gassing"  means,  Hsten  to  this 
description  by  a  British  army  surgeon: 

"In  a  typical  'gassed'  case  the  idea  of  im- 
pending suffocation  predominates.  Every  mus- 
cle of  respiration  is  called  upon  to  do  its  utmost 
to  avert  the  threatened  doom.  The  imperfect 
aeration  of  the  blood  arising  from  obstructed 
respiration  causes  oftentimes  intense  blueness 
and  clamminess  of  the  face,  while  froth  and 
expectoration   blow  from  the  mouth  impelled 


THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY  241 

by  a  choking  cough.  The  poor  fighting  man 
tosses  and  turns  himself  into  every  position 
in  search  of  rehef.  But  his  efforts  are  unavail- 
ing; he  feels  that  his  power  of  breathing  is 
faihng;  that  asph3'xiation  is  gradually  becom- 
ing complete.  The  slow  strangling  of  his  res- 
piration, of  which  he  is  fully  conscious,  at  last 
enfeebles  his  strength.  No  longer  is  it  possible 
for  him  to  expel  the  profuse  expectoration; 
the  air-tubes  of  his  lungs  become  distended 
with  it,  and  with  a  few  gasps  he  dies. 

"If  the  'gassed'  man  survives  the  first  stage 
of  his  agony,  some  sleep  may  follow  the  gradual 
decline  of  the  urgent  symptoms,  and  after  such 
sleep  he  feels  refreshed  and  better.  But  fur- 
ther trouble  is  in  store  for  him,  for  the  intense 
irritation  to  which  the  respiratory  passages 
have  been  exposed  by  the  inhalation  of  the 
suffocating  gas  is  quickl\-  followed  by  the  su- 
pervention of  acute  bronchitis.  In  such  attacks 
death  may  come,  owing  to  the  severity  of  the 
inflammation.  In  mild  cases  of  'gassing,'  on 
the  other  hand,  the  resulting  bronchitis  de- 
velops in  a  modified  form  with  the  result  that 
recovery  now  generally  follows.  Time,  how- 
ever, can  only  show  to  what  extent  permanent 


242  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

damage  to  the  lungs  is  inflicted.  Possibly 
chronic  bronchitis  may  be  the  lot  of  such 
'gassed'  men  in  after  hfe  or  some  pulmonary 
trouble  equally  disturbing.  It  is  difficult  to 
beheve  that  they  can  wholly  escape  some  evil 
effects." 

As  soon  as  it  was  found  that  the  immediate 
cause  of  death  in  the  fatal  gas  cases  was  acute 
congestion  of  the  lungs,  the  surgeons  were  able 
to  treat  it  upon  special  and  definite  lines. 
Means  were  devised  for  insuring  the  expulsion 
of  the  excessive  secretion  from  the  lungs,  thus 
affording  much  rehef  and  making  it  possible 
to  avert  asphyxiation.  In  some  apparently 
hopeless  cases  the  Hves  of  the  men  were  saved 
by  artificial  respiration.  The  inhalation  of 
oxygen  was  also  tried  with  favorable  results, 
and  in  cases  where  the  restlessness  of  the  pa- 
tient was  more  mental  than  physical,  opium 
was  successfully  used.  So  that  even  the  poison- 
gas,  perhaps  the  most  dreadful  death-deaUng 
device  which  the  war  has  produced,  neither 
dismayed  nor  defeated  the  men  whose  task  it  is 
to  save  Hfe  instead  of  to  take  it. 

To  the  surgeons  and  nurses  at  the  front  the 
people  of  France  and  England  owe  a  debt  of 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF   MERCY    243 

gratitude  which  the}^  can  never  wholly  repay. 
The  soldiers  in  the  trenches  are  waging  no 
more  desperate  or  heroic  battle  than  these 
quiet,  efficient,  energetic  men  and  women  who 
wear  the  red  badge  of  mercy.  Their  courage 
is  shown  by  the  enormous  losses  they  have 
suffered  under  fire,  the  proportion  of  mil- 
itary doctors  and  hospital  attendants  killed, 
wounded,  or  taken  prisoner,  equalling  the  pro- 
portion of  infantry  losses.  They  have  no  sleep 
save  such  as  they  can  snatch  between  the  tides 
of  wounded  or  when  they  drop  on  the  floor 
from  sheerest  exhaustion.  They  are  working 
under  as  trying  conditions  as  doctors  and  nurses 
were  ever  called  upon  to  face.  They  treat 
daily  hundreds  of  cases,  any  one  of  which 
would  cause  a  city  physician  to  call  a  con- 
sultation. They  are  in  constant  peril  from 
marauding  TaubeSy  for  the  German  airmen  seem 
to  take  delight  in  choosing  buildings  flying  the 
Red  Cross  flag  as  targets  for  their  bombs.  In 
their  ears,  both  day  and  night,  sounds  the  din 
of  near-by  battle.  Their  organization  is  a  mar- 
vel of  efficiency.  That  of  the  Germans  may 
be  as  good  but  it  can  be  no  better. 

In  order  that  I  may  bring  home  to  you  in 


244  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

America  the  realities  of  this  thing  called  war, 
I  want  to  tell  you  what  I  saw  one  day  in  a 
httle  town  called  Bailleul.  Bailleul  is  only 
two  or  three  miles  on  the  French  side  of  the 
Franco-Belgian  frontier,  and  it  is  so  close  to 
the  firing-Hne  that  its  windows  continually 
rattle.  The  noise  along  that  portion  of  the 
battle-front  never  ceases.  It  sounds  for  all  the 
world  hke  the  clatter  of  a  gigantic  harvester. 
And  that  is  precisely  what  it  is — the  harvester 
of  death. 

As  we  entered  Bailleul  they  were  bringing 
in  the  harvest.  They  were  bringing  it  in  motor- 
cars, many,  many,  many  of  them,  stretching 
in  endless  procession  down  the  yellow  roads 
which  lead  to  Lille  and  Neuve  Chapelle  and 
Poperinghe  and  Ypres.  Over  the  gray  bodies 
of  the  motor-cars  were  gray  canvas  hoods,  and 
painted  on  the  hoods  were  staring  scarlet 
crosses.  The  curtain  at  the  back  of  each  car 
was  rolled  up,  and  protruding  from  the  dim 
interior  were  four  pairs  of  feet.  Sometimes 
those  feet  were  wrapped  in  bandages,  and  on 
the  fresh  white  linen  were  bright-red  splotches, 
but  more  often  they  were  incased  in  worn  and 
muddied  boots.    I  shall  never  forget  those  poor, 


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THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    245 

broken,  mud-incrusted  boots,  for  they  spoke 
so  eloquently  of  utter  weariness  and  pain. 
There  was  something  about  them  that  was 
the  very  essence  of  pathos.  The  owners  of  those 
boots  were  lying  on  stretchers  which  were  made 
to  slide  into  the  ambulances  as  drawers  slide 
into  a  bureau,  and  most  of  them  were  suffering 
agony  such  as  onl}'  a  woman  in  childbirth 
knows. 

This  was  the  reaping  of  the  grim  harvester 
which  was  at  its  work  of  mowing  down  human 
beings  not  five  miles  away.  Sometimes,  as 
the  ambulances  went  rocking  by,  I  would  catch 
a  fleeting  glimpse  of  some  poor  fellow  whose 
wounds  would  not  permit  of  his  lying  down. 
I  remember  one  of  these  in  particular — a  clean- 
cut,  fair-haired  youngster  who  looked  to  be 
still  in  his  teens.  He  was  sitting  on  the  floor 
of  the  ambulance  leaning  for  support  against 
the  rail.  He  held  his  arms  straight  out  in  front 
of  him.  Both  his  hands  had  been  blown  away 
at  the  wrists.  The  head  of  another  was  so 
swathed  in  bandages  that  my  first  impression 
was  that  he  was  wearing  a  huge  red-and-white 
turban.  The  jolting  of  the  car  had  caused  the 
bandages  to  slip.     If  that  man  lives  little  chil- 


246  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

dren  will  run  from  him  in  terror,  and  women 
will  turn  aside  when  they  meet  him  on  the 
street.  And  still  that  caravan  of  agony  kept 
roHing  by,  rolling  by.  The  floors  of  the  cars 
were  sieves  leaking  blood.  The  dusty  road  over 
which  they  had  passed  no  longer  needed  sprin- 
kling. 

Tearing  over  the  rough  cobbles  of  Bailleul, 
the  ambulances  came  to  a  halt  before  some 
one  of  the  many  doorways  over  which  droop 
the  Red  Cross  flags,  for  every  suitable  build- 
ing in  the  Httle  town  has  been  converted  into 
a  hospital.  The  one  of  which  I  am  going  to 
tell  you  had  been  a  school  until  the  war  began. 
It  is  oflicially  known  as  Clearing  Hospital 
Number  Eight,  but  I  shall  always  think  of  it 
as  hell's  antechamber.  In  the  afternoon  that 
I  was  there  eight  hundred  wounded  were 
brought  into  that  building  between  the  hours 
of  two  and  four,  and  this,  mind  you,  was  but 
one  of  many  hospitals  in  the  same  little  town. 
As  I  entered  the  door  I  had  to  stand  aside  to 
let  a  stretcher  carried  by  two  orderlies  pass 
out.  Through  the  rough  brown  blanket  which 
covered  the  stretcher  showed  the  vague  out- 
hnes  of  a  human  form,  but  the  face  was  covered, 


THE  RED  BADGE  OF  MERCY  247 

and  it  was  very  still.  A  week  or  two  weeks  or  a 
month  later,  when  the  casualt}^  lists  w^ere  pub- 
Hshed,  there  appeared  the  name  of  the  still 
form  under  the  brown  blanket,  and  there  was 
anguish  in  some  English  home.  In  the  hall- 
way of  the  hospital  a  man  was  sitting  upright 
on  a  bench,  and  two  surgeons  were  working 
over  him.  He  was  sitting  there  because  the 
operating-rooms  were  filled.  I  hope  that  that 
man  is  unmarried,  for  he  no  longer  has  a  face. 
What  a  few  hours  before  had  been  the  honest 
countenance  of  an  English  lad  was  now  a  horrid 
welter  of  blood  and  splmtered  bone  and  man- 
gled flesh. 

The  surgeon  in  charge  took  me  up-stairs  to 
the  ward  which  contained  the  more  serious 
cases.  On  a  cot  beside  the  door  was  stretched 
a  young  Canadian.  His  face  looked  as  though 
a  giant  in  spiked  shoes  had  stepped  upon  it. 
"Look,"  said  the  surgeon,  and  lifted  the 
woollen  blanket.  That  man's  body  was  like 
a  field  which  has  been  gone  over  with  a  disk 
harrow.  His  feet,  his  legs,  his  abdomen,  his 
chest,  his  arms,  his  face  were  furrowed  with 
gaping,  angry  wounds.  "He  was  shot  through 
the  hand,"  explained  the  surgeon.     "He  made 


248  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

his  way  back  to  the  dressing-station  in  the 
reserve  trenches,  but  just  as  he  reached  it  a 
shell  exploded  at  his  feet."  I  patted  him  on 
the  shoulder  and  told  him  that  I  too  knew 
the  land  of  the  great  forests  and  the  rolhng 
prairies,  and  that  before  long  he  was  going 
back  to  it.  And,  though  he  could  not  speak, 
he  turned  that  poor,  torn  face  of  his  and 
smiled  at  me.  He  must  have  been  suffering 
the  torments  of  the  damned,  but  he  smiled 
at  me,  I  tell  you — he  smiled  at  me. 

In  the  next  bed,  not  two  feet  away — for  the 
hospitals  in  Bailleul  are  very  crowded — a 
great,  brawny  fellow  from  a  Highland  regi- 
ment was  sitting  propped  against  his  pillows. 
He  could  not  lie  down,  the  surgeon  told  me, 
because  he  had  been  shot  through  the  lungs. 
He  held  a  tin  cup  in  his  hand,  and  quite  regu- 
larly, about  once  a  minute,  he  would  hold  it 
to  his  lips  and  spit  out  blood.  Over  by  the 
window  lay  a  boy  with  a  face  as  white  as  the 
pillow-cover.  He  was  quite  conscious,  and 
stared  at  the  ceiling  with  wide,  unseeing  eyes. 
"Another  shrapnel  case,"  remarked  a  hospital 
attendant.  "Both  legs  amputated,  but  he'll 
recover."     I  wonder  what  he  will  do  for  a  living 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    249 

when  he  gets  back  to  England.  Perhaps  he 
will  sell  pencils  or  boot-laces  on  the  flags  of 
Piccadilh',  and  hold  out  his  cap  for  coppers. 
A  man  with  his  head  all  swathed  in  strips  of 
linen  lay  so  motionless  that  I  asked  if  he  was 
living,  "A  head  w^ound,"  was  the  answer. 
"We've  tried  trepanning,  and  he'll  probably 
pull  through,  but  he'll  never  recover  his  rea- 
son." Can't  you  see  him  in  the  years  to  come, 
this  splendid  specimen  of  manhood,  his  mind 
a  blank,  wandering,  helpless  as  a  little  child, 
about  some  English  village  ^ 

I  doubt  if  any  four  walls  in  all  the  world 
contain  more  human  suffering  than  those  of 
Hospital  Number  Eight  at  Bailleul,  yet  of  all 
those  shattered,  broken,  mangled  men  I  heard 
only  one  utter  a  complaint  or  groan.  He  was 
a  fair-haired  giant,  as  are  so  many  of  these 
English  fighting  men.  A  bullet  had  splintered 
his  spine  and,  with  his  hours  numbered,  he 
was  suffering  the  most  awful  torment  that  a 
human  being  can  endure.  The  sweat  stood  in 
beads  upon  his  forehead.  The  muscles  of  his 
neck  and  arms  were  so  corded  and  knotted 
that  it  seemed  as  though  they  were  about  to 
burst  their  way  through  the  sun-tanned  skin. 


250  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

His  naked  breast  rose  and  fell  in  great  sobs  of 
agony.  "Oh  God!  Oh  God!"  he  moaned, 
"be  merciful  and  take  me — it  hurts,  it  hurts 
— it  hurts  me  so — my  wife — the  kiddies — for 
the  love  of  Christ,  doctor,  give  me  a  hypo- 
dermic and  stop  the  pain — say  good-by  to 
them  for  me — tell  them — oh,  I  cant  stand  it 
any  longer — I'm  not  afraid  to  die,  doctor,  but 
I  just  can't  stand  this  pain — oh  God,  dear 
God,  wont  you  please  let  me  die? 

When  I  went  out  of  that  room  the  beads  of 
sweat  were  standing  on  my  forehead. 

They  took  me  down-stairs  to  show  me  what 
they  call  the  "evacuation  ward."  It  is  a  big, 
barn-Hke  room,  perhaps  a  hundred  feet  long 
by  fifty  wide,  and  the  floor  was  so  thickly 
covered  with  blanketed  forms  on  stretchers 
that  there  was  no  room  to  walk  about  among 
them.  These  were  the  men  whose  wounds 
had  been  treated,  and  who,  it  was  believed, 
were  able  to  survive  the  journey  by  hospital 
train  to  one  of  the  base  hospitals  on  the  coast. 
It  is  a  very  grave  case  indeed  that  is  permitted 
to  remain  for  even  a  single  night  in  the  hos- 
pitals in  Bailleul,  for  Bailleul  is  but  a  clearing- 
house for  the  mangled,  and  its  hospitals  must 


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THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    251 

always  be  ready  to  receive  that  unceasing 
scarlet  stream  which,  da}^  and  night,  night  and 
day,  comes  pouring  in,  pouring  in,  pouring  in. 

Those  of  the  wounded  in  the  evacuation 
ward  who  were  conscious  were  for  the  most 
part  cheerful — as  cheerful,  that  is,  as  men  can 
be  whose  bodies  have  been  ripped  and  drilled 
and  torn  by  shot  and  shell,  who  have  been 
strangled  by  poisonous  gases,  who  are  aflame 
with  fever,  who  are  faint  with  loss  of  blood, 
and  who  have  before  them  a  railway  journey 
of  many  hours.  This  railway  journey  to  the 
coast  is  as  comfortable  as  human  ingenuity  can 
make  it,  the  trains  with  their  white  enamelled 
interiors  and  swinging  berths  being  literally 
hospitals  on  wheels,  but  to  these  weakened, 
wearied  men  it  is  a  terribly  trying  experience, 
even  though  they  know  that  at  the  end  of  it 
clean  beds  and  cool  pillows  and  soft-footed, 
low-voiced  nurses  await  them. 

The  men  awaiting  transfer  still  wore  the 
clothes  in  which  they  had  been  carried  from 
the  trenches,  though  in  many  cases  they  had 
been  slashed  open  so  that  the  surgeons  might 
get  at  the  wounds.  They  were  plastered  with 
mud.     Many  of  them  had  had  no  opportunity 


252  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

to  bathe  for  weeks  and  were  crawling  with  ver- 
min. Their  underclothes  were  in  such  loath- 
some condition  that  when  they  were  removed 
they  fell  apart.  The  canvas  stretchers  on 
which  they  lay  so  patiently  and  uncomplain- 
ingly were  splotched  with  what  looked  like 
wet  brown  paint,  and  on  this  horrid  sticky 
substance  were  swarms  of  hungry  flies.  The 
air  was  heavy  with  the  mingled  smells  of  anti- 
septics, perspiration,  and  fresh  blood.  In  that 
room  was  to  be  found  every  form  of  wound 
which  can  be  inflicted  by  the  most  hellish 
weapons  the  brain  of  man  has  been  able  to 
devise.  The  wounded  were  covered  with 
coarse  woollen  blankets,  but  some  of  the  men 
in  their  torment  had  kicked  their  coverings 
off,  and  I  saw  things  which  I  have  no  words 
to  tell  about  and  which  I  wish  with  all  my 
heart  that  I  could  forget.  There  were  men 
whose  legs  had  been  amputated  up  to  the 
thighs;  whose  arms  had  been  cut  off  at  the 
shoulder;  there  were  men  who  had  lost  their 
eyesight  and  all  their  days  must  grope  in  dark- 
ness; and  there  were  other  men  who  had  been 
ripped  open  from  waist  to  neck  so  that  they 
looked  hke  the  carcasses  that  hang  in  front  of 


THE   RED   BADGE  OF  MERCY    253 

butcher-shops;  while  most  horrible  of  all  were 
those  who,  without  a  wound  on  them,  raved 
and  cackled  with  insane  mirth  at  the  horror 
of  the  things  that  they  had  seen. 

We  went  out  from  that  place  of  unfor- 
gettable horrors  into  the  sunlight  and  the 
clean  fresh  air  again.  It  was  late  afternoon, 
the  birds  were  singing,  a  gentle  breeze  was 
whispering  in  the  tree-tops;  but  from  over 
there,  on  the  other  side  of  that  green  and 
smiling  valley,  still  came  the  unceasing  clatter 
of  that  grim  harvester  garnering  its  crop  of 
death.  On  the  ground,  in  the  shade  of  a  spread- 
ing chestnut-tree,  had  been  laid  a  stretcher, 
and  on  it  was  still  another  of  those  silent, 
bandaged  forms.  *'He  is  badly  wounded," 
said  the  surgeon,  following  the  direction  of 
my  glance,  "fairly  shot  to  pieces.  But  he 
begged  us  to  leave  him  in  the  open  air.  We 
are  sending  him  on  by  train  to  Boulogne  to- 
night, and  then  by  hospital  ship  to  England." 
I  walked  over  and  looked  down  at  him.  He 
could  not  have  been  more  than  eighteen — 
just  such  a  clean-limbed,  open-faced  lad  as  any 
girl  would  have  been  proud  to  call  sweet- 
heart,   any   mother   son.      He  was   lying  very 


254  "VIVE  LA  FRANCE!" 

still.  About  his  face  there  was  a  peculiar  gray- 
ish pallor,  and  on  his  half-parted  lips  had 
gathered  many  flies.  I  beckoned  to  the  doc- 
tor. "He's  not  going  to  England,"  I  whis- 
pered; "he's  going  to  sleep  in  France."  The 
surgeon,  after  a  quick  glance,  gave  an  order, 
and  two  bearers  came  and  lifted  the  stretcher, 
and  bore  it  to  a  ramshackle  outhouse  which 
they  call  the  mortuary,  and  gently  set  it  down 
at  the  end  of  a  long  row  of  other  silent  forms. 
As  I  passed  out  through  the  gateway  in  the 
wall  which  surrounds  Hospital  Number  Eight, 
I  saw  a  group  of  children  playing  in  the  street. 
"Come  on,"  shrilled  one  of  them,  "let's  play 
soldier!" 


r'l 


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